Classic Films in Focus: KITTY FOYLE (1940)

Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman (1940) presents a quintessential example of the women’s melodrama, or “weepie,” that enjoyed the height of its popularity throughout the 1940s. Although leading ladies like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford became particularly associated with the genre, in this film it’s Ginger Rogers eliciting the sobs and sighs as the title heroine, a working class girl who has to choose between her youthful ideal and a more pragmatic suitor from her own income tax bracket. Rogers gives an Oscar-winning performance that demonstrates her ability beyond musicals and light romantic comedy, which makes Kitty Foyle essential viewing for her fans, and a handful of emotional scenes earn the movie its tearjerker reputation. The story, however, is more interested in bursting bubbles than in delivering a satisfying romantic narrative, and modern viewers, especially women, might well take issue with its insistence that women need men to give their lives meaning.

Rogers plays Kitty at various points during a decade of her life, as she grows from a starry-eyed kid in pigtails to a sadder and wiser woman of twenty-six. While still living at home with her beloved Pop (Ernest Cossart), Kitty meets the wealthy Wyn Strafford (Dennis Morgan) and promptly falls in love with him, even though her father predicts that their social differences will make them unhappy. Kitty also strikes up a cooler relationship with Mark (James Craig), a penniless doctor just beginning his career. After many ups and downs, including a brief marriage to Wyn, Kitty must finally decide which man to choose.

The opening scenes of the film declare its general opposition to progressive feminism with a lament about the way in which American women traded chivalry for jobs and the vote, so it’s no shock that Kitty Foyle sees very limited options for its heroine. Staying independent isn’t on the table; Kitty can choose adulterous passion in South America with the remarried Wyn or a conventional marriage with the lackluster Mark. Given that this is 1940, we already know which one she’ll pick, even if the movie treats it as a big secret. Neither of her suitors has much to recommend him; Wyn is a shallow Prince Charming ready to abandon his wife and child to get what he wants, while Mark comes off as a real stick in the mud whom even Kitty doesn’t like very much. This is romance between a rock and a hard place, meant to deflate the Cinderella myth of living happily ever after, but it unintentionally makes spinsterhood look pretty good in comparison.

Kitty’s most compelling relationships don’t involve either of her disappointing admirers, and the scenes without them prove far more memorable. The men in her life who really matter are her father and her unborn son, both of whom are named Tom Foyle. Determined to have the baby even after her divorce from Wyn, Kitty imagines him as “my little candidate for the year 2000,” and she says that women want the future more than they really want men. Her father’s death is the first poignant loss of the picture, but the scenes that depict her pregnancy and its aftermath really wring the viewer’s heart. So much of the rest of the story depends on this central section of the narrative, from the early scene of Kitty holding a poor woman’s newborn child to her later encounter with Wyn’s young son. Oddly enough, Kitty’s relationship with her female employer, Delphine (Odette Myrtil), also matters more than her romantic pursuits; only Delphine supports and comforts Kitty during her pregnancy, providing a much needed maternal presence through the darkest period of the heroine’s life. In a more enlightened decade, Kitty might have made a role model of the successful and apparently single Delphine, but she seems unable to imagine her future without some sort of man, even if her mood at the conclusion suggests resignation more than optimism. In the absence of a true Prince Charming, Cinderella opts for the footman, if only to avoid ending up an old maid.

In addition to Rogers’ win for Best Actress, Kitty Foyle scored four Oscar nominations, including nods for Sam Wood as Best Director and Dalton Trumbo for Best Screenplay. Enjoy more of Ginger Rogers without Fred Astaire in Bachelor Mother (1939), The Major and the Minor (1942), and Monkey Business (1952). See Dennis Morgan as a more attractive leading man in Christmas in Connecticut (1945), and look for James Craig in The Human Comedy (1943). For more from director Sam Wood, try A Night at the Opera (1935), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), and The Pride of the Yankees (1942). Break out the tissues for a weepie double header with Stella Dallas (1937), Dark Victory (1939), or A Woman's Face (1941).

In Praise of Women's Pictures

I have been looking over my iCheckMovies rating again this week, which always forces me to confront the fact that I just don't want to sit through some of the movies that make all of those official lists. As I peruse the highly ranked pictures, trying to will myself to buckle down to some of those films, I inevitably come away with a strong desire to watch some unranked classic from the 30s and 40s instead.

Why this reluctance to watch movies that all the critics say are great?

One reason is that almost all of those critics are men (God rest you, Pauline Kael!), and the movies that move them are not the movies that move me. I'm a 40-something wife and mother, and I'm practically a non-entity in those top dog films, unless I'm being bumped off to fuel the plot and create angst for the protagonist. I can be shot by a sniper, beaten to death by organized crime thugs, devoured by zombies, or beheaded by a serial killer, and naturally I see myself being sexually assaulted quite a bit, but I very rarely get to be the protagonist of my own story in modern movies. Chick flicks are no restitution, since these days they tend to be stupid, flaky comedies about women who like to shop, or who put off marriage and children to pursue careers until they are also 40-something but acting as if they were still 22.

I think those women live in New York, where they apparently worry a lot about sex and matching shoes with designer handbags. I'm not sure, though, because I live in Alabama, where I worry a lot about how my kid will turn out and whether that sound in the middle of the night is a burglar or just the cat throwing up on my one good rug. I worry about my husband, especially when he's away on travel, and I worry about what I'm doing with my life, whether I have given up too much for the benefit of others or if I'll still manage to make good on all of those promises and dreams I had for myself twenty years ago.

When I want to see women like myself, be they wives or mothers or single career girls, with serious stories about what it means to live and struggle through the world, I turn to Greer Garson, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, Ginger Rogers, Mary Astor, and a host of other great leading ladies who show us the rich emotional lives of grown-up women living grown-up lives. They don't make actresses like them any more, and if they did make them they still wouldn't have any movies to star in, thanks to a box office driven by CGI testosterone fests aimed at 17-35 year old males.

Sure, I enjoy a bread and circuses comic book action movie on occasion, but I don't see myself in them. You let me know when Black Widow and Hawkeye have to juggle their separate crime fighting careers and decide which one will miss the big villain fight to attend Junior's soccer tournament. Then we'll talk.

At least there was a time, once upon a Hollywood, when things were different. There was a time when Mrs. Miniver could be an Oscar queen, when Mildred Pierce could straddle the line between film noir and weepie with the dark force of a mother's love, when the world wept with Kitty Foyle over her little contender for the year 2000. The women in those films grappled with love and sacrifice, ambition and regret - all the same issues that define my own life more than 60 years later. They tend to be hopeful movies, all things considered; these women are survivors - intelligent, capable, and strong even at their most vulnerable. Their choices may at times seem a little dated, especially to those who are young and single, but to me they resonate powerfully.

We talk about the power of the "every man" in literature and film because people want to see characters who

reflect them and their concerns. We don't talk much about the "every woman," but we should. Women also want to see characters who are like them, but these days we very rarely do. I'm not a super hero, or a secret agent, or a sexy distraction. I'm not a victim, or a cheap thrill, or a mindless child. My story is not written in the margins of other people's lives. One of the greatest things classic movies do for me is to remind me of that.

Thank you, Bette. Thank you, Olivia and Joan. Thank you, Ginger and Greer. Maybe one day there will be enough women critics to balance the score in ranking all of the wonderful films you made, but until then you'll have me, languishing at the bottom of the iCheckMovies heap but getting so much pleasure from the films that speak to me.

Classic Films in Focus: GIRL CRAZY (1943)

By 1943, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland had made more than half a dozen movies together, so Girl Crazy (1943) was both a return to a tested formula and an attempt to do something a little different with the two stars. Once again we have the “let’s put on a show” plot that justifies a series of musical numbers, but Rooney and Garland’s characters have more mature parts to play and a more complicated twist to their usual romance. Fans of the two stars will probably like this picture well enough, but Girl Crazy doesn’t come off quite as successfully as their earlier collaborations, largely because of the way the story sets up the main characters and their relationships.

Rooney is Danny Churchill, Jr., a rich man’s son and a playboy who has an eye for the ladies. In order to make something of him, his father ships Danny off to a remote Western college with no female students, but Danny promptly meets the dean’s granddaughter, Ginger (Judy Garland), and tries to impress her. Ginger rebuffs Danny’s advances at first, but eventually she warms up to him, and the two decide to stage a Western rodeo show to save the college from closing.

The sweet, adolescent quality of Rooney and Garland’s romance is a big part of their earlier films’ appeal, but in Girl Crazy Rooney’s character comes off as something of a masher, putting the moves on every girl he sees, and it’s harder to accept him as an adult romantic lead. He looks foolishly out of place, whether partying on stage in his tuxedo or moseying about the desert in his ridiculous cowboy duds. If Ginger has the pick of every handsome man in town, why would she go for the short, overeager Danny? Their love affairs make more sense when the two are childhood friends and sweethearts from the start, as they are in Babes in Arms (1939). Garland’s character is also problematic; Ginger is very much a Ginger Rogers personality, prickly and resistant to romance, which works great in the Fred and Ginger movies but not so much here. Ginger Rogers had, in fact, originated the role in the 1930 Broadway production, and the character was renamed "Ginger" from the original "Molly" in her honor. Once she decides to like Danny, Ginger’s character works better as a Judy Garland role, but she never manages the perfect balance of attraction and repulsion that makes Rogers so much fun in films like Swing Time (1936).

Despite these problems, there are things to like about Girl Crazy. Big band fans will love seeing Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra in several numbers, with Dorsey playing himself as one of Danny’s nightclub friends. Guy Kibbee is lovable as the college dean, and a young Nancy Walker livens up the group as Ginger’s streetwise cousin, Polly. June Allyson makes an early feature film appearance as a specialty singer, and Busby Berkeley directs a particularly lavish Western finale featuring the song, “I’ve Got Rhythm.” Other musical highlights include “Bidin’ My Time” and “Fascinating Rhythm.” Even if she’s not ideally suited to her character, Garland looks and sounds great, and Rooney also gets a fun number in “Could You Use Me.”

Try the earlier Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney films for a chance to see the two stars in their best collaborations, starting with Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) and Babes in Arms (1939). Garland, of course, is best remembered for The Wizard of Oz (1939), but see some of her later musicals, too, including Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Harvey Girls (1946), and Easter Parade (1948). Mickey Rooney, a living legend in 2013, has earned four Oscar nominations and appeared in more than 300 films and television programs, starting with the Mickey McGuire shorts of the late 1920s. Catch him in Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), A Family Affair (1937), and Captains Courageous (1937) for some of his best adolescent roles. Norman Taurog, who directed everything except the finale, also directed Mickey Rooney in Boys Town (1937), Young Tom Edison (1940), and Men of Boys Town (1941).

Classic Films in Focus: 42ND STREET (1933)

In the Depression Era, frothy, upbeat musicals were a much appreciated form of relief, and nobody made musicals any frothier or more upbeat than choreographer Busby Berkeley, who didn't actually direct the films but rather constructed elaborate, show-stopping musical numbers around which the directors filled in the gaps. Of the Busby Berkeley films, 42nd Street (1933) is the best known, partly because of visually dazzling musical interludes like "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and partly because director Lloyd Bacon's surrounding story is the ultimate backstage theater tale that so many later films have imitated, parodied, and revised.

The picture features Berkeley regulars Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler as two of the performers in a troubled stage musical being produced by the brilliant but dangerously overworked Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter). Powell plays Billy, one of the principal performers, while Keeler is Peggy, a nervous first timer. After a couple of more experienced chorus girls (Ginger Rogers and Una Merkel) help Peggy get a spot in the show, she finds out just how demanding life on the stage can be. Meanwhile, the show's star, Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels), depends on a wealthy admirer for the musical's financial support, but she can't seem to give up her old flame (George Brent) for the sake of her career. When Dorothy breaks her ankle just before opening night, Peggy is forced to sink or swim as her last minute replacement.

The musical numbers are great fun, especially the cheeky "Shuffle Off to Buffalo," and "42nd Street" has become a classic of the genre. Baxter's line to Keeler, "You're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!" is hopelessly sappy but still one of Hollywood's most memorable moments. Ruby Keeler really is the new kid in the film; this was her first screen appearance, and she is somewhat overshadowed by the scene stealing comediennes Ginger Rogers and Una Merkel. Rogers, of course, would go on to lasting fame as Fred Astaire's dancing partner, but she has a great role in "Anytime Annie" that lets her show how spunky, funny, and smart she could be.

42nd Street earned two Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley worked with Powell and Keeler again for Footlight Parade, which also appeared in 1933. George Brent went on to meatier roles as a leading man, starring with Bette Davis in Jezebel (1938), The Old Maid (1939), and Dark Victory (1939), among others. You'll find Ginger Rogers making her first screen appearance with Astaire in Flying Down to Rio (1933), but don't miss her starring comedic performance in The Major and the Minor (1942) or her Oscar winning work in the women's melodrama, Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman (1940). The delightful Una Merkel can also be seen in Destry Rides Again (1939) and It's a Joke, Son! (1947).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR (1942)

Billy Wilder would direct some of the most memorable films to come out of the Hollywood studio era, including Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Blvd. (1950), and Some Like It Hot (1959), but every director has to start somewhere, and the relatively lightweight comedy The Major and the Minor (1942) was Wilder's first time directing an American film. Wilder and frequent collaborator Charles Brackett wrote the screenplay for this charmingly perverse picture, which foreshadows Some Like It Hot in its focus on the romantic misadventures that individuals can stumble into when they pretend to be someone they aren't. With a rich, if rather risque, subtext and lively performances from stars Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland, Wilder's The Major and the Minor is well worth watching, even if it doesn't pack the same cinematic punch as the illustrious director's later work.

Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) has been trying to make it in New York City for a couple of years, but she finally gets sick of the constant sexual harassment and unwanted attention and decides to head home to Iowa. She has prudently kept just enough money for a return ticket sealed in an envelope since her arrival in the big city, but she is devastated to learn that the train fare has gone up in the interim. She solves this problem by disguising herself as a twelve year old in order to qualify for the half price fare, and in this persona she ends up in the sleeping compartment of kindly Major Kirby (Ray Milland). Kirby's imperfect vision prevents him from discovering Susan's ruse even in close quarters, and he gallantly offers to help the "little girl" get home to her mother. The pair end up at the military school where Kirby teaches, and there Susan must attempt to perpetuate her deception in the face of Kirby's fiancee, the rest of the faculty, and an entire academy of eager adolescent cadets.

The well-developed Ginger Rogers is not particularly credible as a twelve year old, but that's part of the gag, especially because the rest of the adults are so good at seeing what they are told to see rather than what is right in front of their noses. Rogers has wonderful fun switching back and forth between her identities as adult Susan and childish "Su-Su," and her scenes with the lovestruck cadets are simply hilarious. Ray Milland is clueless but lovable as the myopic major; he's the ultimate straight man for all of the shenanigans that are going on around him, never quite figuring any of it out. Stealing her scenes as usual is the fantastic Diana Lynn as Lucy Hill, the sharp-eyed younger sister of the thoroughly nasty woman Major Kirby intends to marry. Lynn's precociously adult personality and hard-boiled way around a line make her a perfect foil for Rogers, and the two have some great scenes together as they plot against their common nemesis, Lucy's older sister, Pamela (Rita Johnson).

You could probably watch The Major and the Minor with the kids and have a swell time with the comedy of errors surface, but the subtext of the picture digs down into some of Wilder's favorite adult themes, including seduction and manipulation, along with an eyebrow-raising flirtation with pedophilia. We as the audience know that Susan Applegate is really an adult, but Major Kirby doesn't, and this makes his increasing attraction to "Su-Su" rather alarming. There is a foreshadowing of Lolita here, played for laughs, of course, but the idea of Ray Milland as an amiable, accidental Humbert Humbert is bound to make a modern viewer a little uncomfortable. Luckily for Wilder, Nabokov's novel wouldn't be published until 1955, so his original audiences were spared what is now an inevitable association.

Wilder's film depends upon two great assumptions about the sexes: men are born pigs, and women are born liars. The cadets at the school behave no better than the men in New York City, a point made more obvious by having one student actually be the son of the last metropolitan masher to put the moves on Susan. Only Kirby remains above this sort of behavior, a kind of masculine ingenue, which might help to explain his interest in the seemingly infantile Su-Su. Susan, Pamela, and Lucy all display a natural talent for deception; they play a vicious, complicated game with one another in which the men and boys are their pawns, with the unsuspecting Kirby as the final prize. This is heady stuff, either hilariously funny or unforgivably faithless; what Wilder here spins in the direction of comedy also spirals toward tragedy in Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd.

Take a few minutes to appreciate Ginger Rogers' real mother, Lela Rogers, as Susan's mother in the film. They bear a very marked resemblance to one another, and it's an amusing example of the intermingling of life and art. For more of Rogers herself, see Top Hat (1935), Kitty Foyle (1940), and Monkey Business (1952). Ray Milland is best remembered today for his Oscar-winning performance in The Lost Weekend (1945), he also stars in The Big Clock (1948), Rhubarb (1951), and Dial M for Murder (1954) If you enjoy Diana Lynn's performance, which you certainly should, be sure to catch her in Preston Sturges' crackerjack comedy, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). Lynn also makes an appearance in the Martin and Lewis remake of The Major and the Minor, the 1955 film You're Never Too Young. Drew Barrymore's cute romantic comedy, Never Been Kissed (1999), offers another iteration of the same basic concept that drives Wilder's picture.

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: CAREFREE (1938)

The name, Carefree (1938), pretty much sums up the atmosphere of this light romantic comedy featuring classic movie favorites Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In this outing, as in all of their best known films, Fred and Ginger dance on unperturbed by life's grittier concerns, singing and dancing their way to love against a backdrop of wealth and country club ease. Although it is not as famous as big hits like Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936), Carefree is a charming musical comedy, sure to delight fans of the genre and those who value the breezy elegance that Rogers and Astaire embody so well.

Astaire plays psychiatrist Tony Flagg, who agrees to see his friend's intended bride because she keeps breaking off their engagement. Ralph Bellamy is the friend, Stephen Arden, and, of course, Ginger Rogers appears as the uncertain bride, Amanda. The good doctor employs various techniques to get to the root of his patient's reluctance to go through with the marriage, but in the course of his ministrations Amanda falls for him, putting everyone involved into a series of awkward situations. Along the way, we get several lively song and dance numbers, with music from Irving Berlin, and some very funny comedic scenes.

To watch Fred and Ginger dance is to see people defy gravity. Astaire is a lighter, more refined dancer than Gene Kelly, whose more masculine and athletic style would eventually come to dominate the musical genre. Both approaches have their attractions. "The Yam" dance number is an especially energetic example of Astaire and Rogers at work, and Ginger seems to be having a very good time singing in that one, too, even if the song is really quite silly. Astaire's solo dance early in the film, which begins with a harmonica and ends with golf clubs, is also great fun. This is a short picture with a limited number of show-stopping sequences, but that might be a good thing, since the viewer never feels overwhelmed by them.

The movie begins with some seriously outdated comments about women from the cynical Tony, and one has to wonder about the ethical problems of his constant manipulation of his patient's thoughts, especially as he tries to force Amanda to love Stephen by hypnotizing her. The film's sexist assumptions are trumped, however, by Ginger Rogers' sparkling comedic performance. Not only is she better looking than Astaire, but she's funnier, too, and Carefree gives her ample opportunity to demonstrate her gift for comic mischief. Whenever Tony alters Amanda's mental state, chaos ensues, and Rogers gleefully romps through these scenes. She's similar in many ways to Lucille Ball, only she never seems sorry or embarrassed, even when she glides to the altar with a black eye in the closing scene. Carefree is really Ginger's movie, and she is truly a delight to watch. In 1941 she would win an Oscar for her performance in Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman (1940), beating competitors as daunting as Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn. Watching Carefree helps us to see why she deserved to be in such company, not merely for Kitty Foyle but for her whole career as an actress.

Director Mark Sandrich, who led several of the Fred and Ginger pictures for RKO, oversees the hilarity here, as well. The supporting cast members also add to the fun. Luella Gear is great as Amanda's Aunt Cora, while the wonderful character actor Jack Carson backs Astaire as Tony's assistant, Connors. Clarence Kolb evokes laughs as Judge Joe, and we also get Hattie McDaniel from Gone with the Wind (1939) appearing in yet another uncredited role as the maid, Hattie. At least she gets a good line in during the brief time she has on screen.

Carefree earned three Oscar nominations, including one for Irving Berlin’s song, “Change Partners and Dance with Me,” but it went home empty-handed. For more of Fred and Ginger, try The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Shall We Dance (1937), but be sure to catch Ginger on her own in 42^nd Street (1933), Roxie Hart (1942), and Monkey Business (1952). Ralph Bellamy also appears in The Awful Truth (1937), His Girl Friday (1940), and Dance, Girl, Dance (1940).