A wealthy aristocrat farmer (Melville Cooper) woos and weds a New York night club singer (Joan Crawford).  The family back home in Wisconsin is not very accepting of her.

As a movie this was not my favorite, but there were some interesting things in it.  The screenplay was co-written by Ogden Nash, better known for his light verse.  I did not notice any Ogden Nash-ian influences in the dialog.  There is a passing mention of Seabiscuit, who would run his famous match race against War Admiral in 1938.  The thing that caught my attention most, however, was in the opening scene.  Robert Young (playing Melville Cooper's brother) awakes from a sleeper berth in an airplane.  There is very little passenger air travel in the movies from MCMXXXVIII, so I was impressed with a plane that offers sleeper berths, something you don't see today.  The plane in the movie was the Flagship New York, which was a real plane flown by American Airlines.  It was a DST, or Douglas Sleeper Transport.  It could hold fourteen passengers.  A west coast to east coast flight would take over eighteen hours, but I imagine that the one in the movie was a Chicago to New York run.  American did run the Flagship New York on this trip but I don't see why it would take more than six hours.  Rich people need naps, I guess.

The Flagship New York





Familiar faces: Margaret Sullavan, Fay Bainter, Hattie McDaniel, Frank Albertson

Alice Faye, Joan Davis and Marjorie Weaver play Sally, Irene and Mary, three manicurists who are trying to break into show business.  Popular radio comedian Fred Allen plays their agent and Jimmy Durante is his eventual partner in producing a show.

There was an earlier (silent) movie with the same name that was Joan Crawford's breakout role.  Although this movie was nominally based on the same play as that one, the plot was apparently discarded and only the title kept.  In this one, Sally and her love interest Tommy each have a sugar daddy/mama willing to fund a show.  Sally's is an amorous Baron, Tommy's is a many-times-divorced gold digger played by Gypsy Rose Lee (as Louise Hovick).  For the show to go on Sally and Tommy must leave each other and promise to marry the money, but the other girls plot so save their romance.

A befuddled representative of the International Dance Exposition in Paris mistakes the tropical Club Balle (Think Bali) in New York for the American Academy of Ballet.  The club owners have just learned that despite playing to a packed house every night they are losing money hand over fist, so they take advantage of the confusion and accept the gig.  They pack up their entire night club act (along with the Schnickelfritz Band) and head to Paris.

This is the last of several "Gold Digger" Busby Berkeley musicals - the others star Dick Powell, this one stars Rudy Vallee. Rudy does a nice impression of Maurice Chevalier.  Besides Rudy Vallee, this movie stars Rosemary Lane (a Lane Sister).  It also has a full complement of some of my favorite character actors from MCMXXXVIII: Hugh Herbert ("hoo hoo!"), Allen Jenkins, Melville Cooper, and Edward Brophy.  The Schnickelfritz Band is like an earlier Spike Jones Band, playing crazy instruments or regular instruments in crazy ways.

Rudy Vallee doing Maurice Chevalier

Lawyer Stephen Holland (Herbert Marshall) is awakened to the problems in his marriage when his long-term nanny resigns.  His wife, Cynthia (Mary Astor), is selfish and manipulative, and there is no love in his marriage.  Braced with this new knowledge he refuses to give in to her next demand, but finds himself at loggerheads. He decides she will never change and divorces her, winning weekend visitation with their five-year-old daughter, Ellen.  A few months later Stephen meets Maris (Virginia Bruce) on a business trip to D.C.  He falls in love and marries her, and they return to his hometown where Cynthia still has the sympathy of the social set.  Maris is given the cold shoulder by the women of the town and Cynthia continues to play the wronged woman to make sure it stays that way.  Cynthia seems to be winning the war against Maris when she finally goes too far in using daughter Ellen against her husband.  Cynthia is exposed and Maris negotiates an armistice.

Mary Astor plays her part perfectly but as such is not very likeable.  Virginia Bruce is very likeable but does not look nearly as pretty when she has to stand next to Mary Astor.  Mary is quite the looker.  Herbert Marshall's character is a brilliant and confident lawyer, but he just gets batted around like a ping pong ball where women are concerned.

Lucille Ball is movie star Annabel Allison, who spars with her scheming publicity agent Lanny Morgan (Jack Oakie).  This is a follow-up movie to The Affairs of Annabel, which I gather has a similar plot.  The earlier movie is also from 1938 so maybe I will get to see it.  This is the first time (from 1938) I have seen Lucille Ball in the lead.  She takes a few prat falls  but most of the comedy belongs to Jack Oakie.

This is a nice little boxing flick with a lot of familiar faces.  Robert Taylor plays boxer Tommy "Killer" McCoy.  His dad is played by Frank Morgan.  The gambler who buys his contract is Edward Arnold.  The boxer's love interest is Maureen O'Sullivan.  Maureen's school chum is Jane Wyman.  The gambler's competition is Nat Pendleton.  The trainer is played by Lionel Stander, whom I know as "Max" from Hart to Hart.

My Lucky Star with Sonja Henie.  Like my other Sonja Henie movie, Happy Landing, this has Cesar Romero playing the playboy scoundrel.  It also reprises my favorite gag from the earlier movie - Billy Gilbert as a server pushing a special that his customers don't want.  This time he is running a sweet shop and pushing the tutti frutti sundae (with pistachios) when his customers just want chocolate.

Okay, the plot:  Cesar Romero is the son of a wealthy New York department store owner.  He has impulsively married a gold digger played by Gypsy Rose Lee (but credited as Louise Hovak).  His wife intends to take him to the cleaners in the divorce if she can get proof that he is fooling around.  He obliges by luring store employee Sonja Henie to his apartment, where she is seen but not identified.  To prevent positive identification Romero hatches a scheme to enroll her in remote Plymouth University where her job will be to provide product placement for the women's winter-wear department by changing clothes five times a day.  Fortuitously, ice skating is a popular pastime there.  Romance and hijinks ensue.  There is a pretty cool "Alice in Wonderland" ice ballet at the end of the movie.

Buddy Ebsen has a prominent part, opposite Joan Davis of "I Married Joan" fame.  Fish and chips man Arthur Treacher has a small role as factotum to Romero's dad.  Paul Hurst (the Yankee deserter shot by Scarlett) plays Gypsy Rose Lee's detective friend.

Gypsy Rose Lee and Paul Hurst

Joan Davis and Buddy Ebsen