It's a Date (1940)

There is no type of story more annoying to me than when two women who are friends or are civil to each other are pitted against each other or they butt heads for whatever stupid reason can be thought of. There is no reason for that. Yes, women can be morons and best friends can become jealous of each other (I am speaking as a woman here) but that does not happen all the time. I can tell you for a fact that my friends and are would never do that to each other we would never be jealous of each other over stupid stuff. We have the temperament of men we are lazy and like to eat and watch movies all day. Anyway… when stories in films and TV shows pit two women against each other that are friends or are civil it makes my blood boil. I can think of when CSI pit their two female characters against each other in one episode when the series first started and the actresses told the writers they never want that to happen again (really, really good show to watch where the two female characters actually get along and help each other is Leverage. They were two totally different characters with totally different temperaments, personalities, and jobs within the group that they got along great they were friends there was never a need for them to butt heads). For the 1940 film It’s a Date the two female leads that are pitted against each other are a mother and her daughter in their feelings for the same man.

            Georgia Drake (Kay Francis) is a famous stage star. Her young daughter Pam (Deanna Durbin) wants to be a dramatic stage star like her. Pam comes down from school to see her mother’s final performance in a show. Georgia has a closing night party at their place. Pam and her friend try to get the attention of all the theatrical people there.

            Georgia’s manager Sidney brings a playwright named Karl Ober to the party. Ober has never had a play of his run in America and he is thinking about bringing his newest play St. Anne to the States. Sidney thinks Georgia will be perfect for the part but Ober says the part is for a young girl not an older woman. Pam wants a part in what she believes will be her mother’s next show. The part is small but she wants to do it badly. She also wants Sidney to come up to her school and direct a play. Sidney does not really want to do so Pam turns on the works and gets over dramatic to make him change his mind. After her performance Ober thinks Pam might be a good St. Anne. Sidney thinks it would be a good idea if they go up to Maine where Pam goes to school to see her acting abilities.

            Sidney comes up to the school and suggests to the students in the play that they should do a scene from Ober’s new play. Pam, of course, plays the lead and she does a great job. Sidney wants to give her the lead but Ober is still a little bit unsure. Sidney tells Pam she got the part of St. Anne and wants her to work constantly and he will work her until she cannot work anymore. Pam decides that in order to learn the part and only focus on that she will need the help of her mother who at the time is down in Hawaii on vacation as well as working on her lines for St. Anne which she thinks she has the role of.

            On the ship Pam runs her lines and nothing else. A man named John Arlen (Walter Pidgeon) sees her not knowing that she is reciting lines he thinks she is unhappy. John is friends with the captain and the two of them decide to try to make Pam happy. John plays a trick on her making her think he is a stowaway. Unfortunately the joke backfires with Pam thinking he is really a stowaway for the next few days. To end the joke John tells the captain to send around some his men to check the lifeboats. Thinking that John will get into trouble Pam throws herself overboard to create a distraction. John jumps to save her. Pam finds out the joke when they are pulled back on board and she is not happy with him at all.

            John wants to try to make things right with Pam. He still thinks she is unhappy since he heard her running the lines from the play. He eventually does get the girl to laugh when they are at dinner. While coming off the ship when it has docked, John bumps into Georgia who is coming on to find Pam. Pam tells her mother that she has had a shipboard romance which worries her mother to no end.

            At the house Pam starts going over her lines and then Georgia picks up the line. Mother and daughter have no idea they were both going for the same part. Pam tells her mother that she has been cast in a new play and tries to make a story up off the top of her head. A call comes in for Georgia but Pam gets to get. It is about a cable from Sidney who has to talk to her about the part of St. Anne before Pam can get down there and that he will call her that night. Pam lies to her mother that she has set a dinner engagement with the man she met on the ship and wants her to come along to meet him. It takes some time before Georgia agrees to go. Then Pam has to go to John and convince him to go out to dinner and he is convinced. In the middle of dinner Pam slips out to get to Sidney’s call. She tries to talk the manager into giving the part to her mother since she really wants it. Sidney tells the girl that Ober wants her for the role he wants someone younger not her mother who is older and not who he wants for the role. Sidney tells her that he and Ober are coming down in a few days.

            Some time later, John takes both Georgia and Pam out to dinner. He takes turns paying attention to both women talking to them and dancing with them. They both seem jealous when they are not getting John attention. John tells Georgia’s mother that he wants to marry her not Pam. The mother is very happy she was worried about Pam’s ideas of him marrying her. Pam wants to propose to John but he never gives her the chance. He invites both women to a party at the governor’s house. He plans to propose to Georgia there if he can get her alone. John has the governor ask Pam to sing a song so he and Georgia can be alone. The plan does not go as it should have but Pam does make it onto the stage and John and Georgia have their time alone. She accepts his proposal even though both of them know that Pam will be devastated. Georgia decides to give up Broadway for a while and suggests to Sidney that Pam should have the role of St. Anne.

            Pam is not happy at all that her mother and John are marrying each other. She goes into a tirade at the party. When she storms out Ober says she will be perfect as St. Anne. Georgia and John go see Pam on her opening night of the show.

            It’s a Date was not that good. I did like Deanna Durbin she was a very good actress but I did not like her character at all. She was a bit of a bitch to her mother. Kay Francis was great I always like seeing her in films. Unfortunately at this time her career was not as hot as it used to be and she was relegated to second rate parts. Walter Pidgeon was good I liked him with Kay Francis. I hated the storyline of a daughter being pitted against her mother for a part as well as a man. The whole romantic idea of a mother and daughter liking the same man is not romantic and it was not even funny or well thought out it was just weird. The daughter did not deserve anything but Deanna Durbin was Universal’s biggest money maker so of course she had a happy ending as well. It’s a Date is a classic film to skip unless you are a fan of either Deanna Durbin, Kay Francis, or Walter Pidgeon. 

Nick Carter Master Detective (1939)

“Look, I'm not a storybook detective with, uh, a highball glass in one hand and, uh, a Chinese proverb in another, nor can I tell you from the ashes of a man's cigar that he, uh, had kippered herring for breakfast and hit his grandmother over the head with an axe. I'm just a New York flatfoot, the product of the McGonigle School.”

            In the 1930s and 1940s detective stories were all the rage. Movie studios could not get enough of making detective films. If you follow my blog or look at what my favorite classic film and two of my favorite movie characters are you will know who my favorite detective is. I like how some detective films were comedic but serious at the same time. I have yet to see a detective film that has bored me. The latest detective film I have seen is Nick Carter Master Detective starring Walter Pidgeon in the title role.

            A new plane is being tested. A man named Robert Chalmers has his taxi drive near a plan to stop it as it is about to take off. He says he is the new superintendent of Radex Airlines. Another man on the plane named Keller has created a new airplane that will revolutionize air travel. The pilot makes like the plane has malfunctioned and lands the plane where some people are waiting for Keller’s plane. Robert shoots the pilot and runs for the briefcase. The flight attendant Lou Farnsby (Rita Johnson) is a WASP. She manages to get the plan off the ground.

            Robert is really detective Nick Carter. He has been sent to keep an eye on Keller. The President of Radex, Hiram Streeter, is upset about the pilot because he had been a good guy up to that day and that others have been turned before. Nick takes a tour of the airplane factory. The planes and plans are kept under lock and key and many precautions are taken but still plans are getting out. Nick is suspicious of Lou. He has her taken off flying duty so he can keep an eye on her.

            Nick was sitting in the factory’s doctor’s office when a guy comes in with a hurt head. The doctor told him to go home. As he walks out a man approaches him and asks if he got the blueprints out. Someone tells the foreman that the blueprints for the X-42 have been stolen. Keller comes over the blueprints someone had out his prints in the floor to roll around they were not put away.  

            The test flight of the plane ended in a crash and killed the pilot. They find the bolts that were supposed to hold it together have been sawed through. That night Lou sees Nick going through Keller’s toolbox looking for his saw. She is suspicious of Nick. Nick is suspicious of Keller because he was in a hurry to get out of the room when he started to be accused. Nick sends the blade to be tested for steel. The tests come back, there was steel on the blade. He goes to question Keller but finds the man dead in his car. The death looks like he was strangled. He sees footprints on the floor of the car. The shoe looks like a high heal. Nick questions Lou the next day. She tells him she was with him and with friends, and with Keller, and drove around with him for a while. He knows she is concealing something. Lou tells Nick she knows about him looking around in Keller’s toolbox.

            Another guy goes to see the doctor. The doctor has Lou walk out. The guy is not really hurt he gets up and takes planes out of his pocket. The doctor locks the door and takes a picture of the plans. Lou goes to Nick. He tells her to keep an eye on the doctor. Nick gets the guy who stole the plans and takes him to the police. The police find the picture negatives in the guy’s bandages.

            Nick makes it impossible for the doctor to get out. The doctor was one step ahead of Nick by having someone take Lou hostage. Nick has to choose between taking the doctor to prison and saving Lou.

            And since you are the ever so smart movie watcher I am sure you know that Nick manages to get the girl.

            Nick Carter Master Detective was a good mystery. I liked Walter Pidgeon as the title detective. Pidgeon is not the smooth Nick Charles played by William Powell or Perry Mason played by Warner William and that was a nice change. He is what I would picture a not hardened/not charming and goofy detective would be like. I liked seeing him in a trench coat and a fedora solving crimes. Rita Johnson was good but she was no Nora Charles or Garda Sloane. Nick Carter Master Detective is enjoyable and clever. I watched the film through TCM some time ago. It is available on DVD in a set of other Nick Carter films. If the film airs on TCM again get it a try, especially if you like detective/mystery films.

 

My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937)

Studios in the 1930s seemed to have a thing for making films set around the newspaper business. The most famous of the newspaper business- set films is His Girl Friday which was made in 1940. I have written about a few newspaper themed films including Headline Shooter, Picture Snatcher, and Love is a Racket, Meet John Doe, and I am sure plenty more that I am not thinking of. My Dear Miss Aldrich is a nice light comedy based around a young woman inheriting a newspaper and trying to prove she can be a reporter.

            A newspaper publisher named Thomas Hanson has died. His only relative is an old maid step-sister called Aunt Lu (Edna May Oliver) and a young niece named Martha Aldrich (Maureen O’Sullivan) who is a school teacher in Nebraska. The publisher has left his newspaper to Martha. She does not know the first thing about running a newspaper but she is excited to see how the business works and especially because she gets to move to New York City.

            Ken Morley (Walter Pidgeon) is the newspaper’s top reporter. He is not at all happy about Martha taking over the paper. When Martha and Aunt Lu walk Thomas Hanson’s office Ken thinks Aunt Lu is Martha. He gets very nervous until he sees Martha and is relieved. Martha, Aunt Lu, and Ken are invited to dinner at the governor’s house. All through dinner Ken cannot keep his eyes off of Martha. The governor tells her how Ken does not have a modern view of women. Ken is not crazy about them especially one running his newspaper. Ken tries to tell Martha haw the male readers would not like to read a newspaper run by a woman.

            Ken has been trying to find out if a queen of a foreign country is expecting a baby. It is only a rumor and every paper in the city has been trying to get the real story. No matter his tactics Ken cannot get any information. Martha asks him why he did not just call the queen at the hotel she is staying at. He thinks it is a stupid idea the queen will not answer the phone and just talk to someone she does not know, she probably will not even be the one to pick up the phone. Martha picks up the phone, calls the queen, the queen confirms the story, and she even has Martha send over a reporter to speak with her. Since this task was so easy Martha begs Ken to make her a reporter.

            Martha goes to a wedding of her friend’s. A rival newspaper happens to get the story before her paper and even mentions her name. Ken is furious with her and yells at her. Martha is so upset she goes out and buys a new hat. While at the store she sees a woman, Mrs. Sinclair,  whose husband is part of a large strike that happening. Ken is chasing that story. Mrs. Sinclair tells the salesgirl that she must have the hat by six o’clock that night. Martha pretends to be a salesgirl to speak to Mrs. Sinclair. Unfortunately Mrs. Sinclair knows who Martha is.

            Martha was following a lead that took her to a building. In her snooping she gets hit on the head and faints. When she wakes up she sees the Sinclairs leaving through the backdoor into a car to leave town. She gets a car and a driver and follows the Sinclairs. Aunt Lu and Ken go looking for Martha. They track her down to the building. Aunt Lu has a maid take her downstairs to look for a trunk. She finds a piece of her puzzle there where Martha had thrown it.

            Martha follows the Sinclairs down to a hotel. She hears people talking about the strike. Mrs. Sinclair hears Martha is around and invites her in. Martha sees Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Talbot, who is also part of the strike, talking over terms. All three tie Martha up so they can get away. Ken and Aunt Lu find out that Martha is at the hotel. Ken finds Martha but him and another reporter get knocked out.

            Now Ken, the reporter, and Aunt Lu have been tied up. Aunt Lu and Martha manage to get untied. Martha planned to leave Ken and the reporter behind until they work out a plan. They send a call to the hospital that a case of smallpox is at the hotel. They even cute the wires to the hotel so that no one makes outgoing calls. The “doctors” Ken called are two guys from the newspaper.

            Needless to say Ken has a change of heart and does not mind having Martha around at his paper.

            Maureen O’Sullivan and Walter Pidgeon seemed a little miss matched but in a way they worked very well together. Both O’Sullivan and Pidgeon were very good actors that do not get enough credit. Neither really had tremendous talent to be the leads in large films but they did a good job as leads in smaller films such as this. O’Sullivan, in the films I have seen of hers, adds some light to the films she was never really too over dramatic she was just right for her parts. Edna May Oliver gets top billing even though she is not really the focus. She was hysterical in every one of her scenes. She was quiet then all the sudden she would come out with a witty line and say it quickly. Pidgeon really did not do anything for me. He is not bad I have seen several of his films but he just does not really leave an impression on me.

            My Dear Miss Aldrich is a very funny and entertaining film. The story is good but at times it moves a little slow. The dialogue, like most 1930s newspaper film and just 1930s films in general, is sharp and quick. My Dear Miss Aldrich is not available on DVD nor is it available on Youtube. I caught the film on TCM. If the channel ever airs it again definitely watch it.