Hayden Kane
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
Aubrey Hackett
While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
vincentlynch-moonoi
In fact, I like Kay Francis, too, although I have learned that whether Francis was good or bad in a film depended a lot on whether the film, overall, was good or bad. And this is fairly bad one. Particularly the early parts of the film where the plot is being set up. But the worst part of the film is the dreadful performance of supporting actress Isabel Jeans; if there were a death penalty for bad acting, Jeans would have been in the gas chamber for this film.Kay Francis struggles through here...and I mean that literally. To me her whole performance is off a bit. Okay, so she's an actress who wants to act only in New York City. I can accept that, but also understand how unrealistic it is to expect to go big time without paying your dues before that.George Brent is an actor I enjoy, but without Bette Davis he was less interesting. And there's no Bette here. He does "okay" here as an architect turned set designer turned lover.Ian Hunter, a likable and dependable actor is...likable and dependable here. No great shakes, but he does "okay" also. To emotionally generous to be in a triangular love affair.And Gloria Dickson as Brent's wife...no thanks.The trouble with this film is that there are things about it that are bad, things about it that are "okay", but very little about it that is good...and certainly nothing about it that is great.Proceed at your own risk. Isabel Jeans as Marian Plantagenet
edwagreen
A rather benign 70 minute production where Kay Francis, the daughter of a famous actor, will not tour the country, but rather insists upon making the Broadway scene.Whoever made up Miss Francis for this film did a terrible job. She looks just awful. For someone becoming a starlet on Broadway, she certainly does not look the part.I never saw someone become a star so fast. Her play "Springboard" is never shown. We just see Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, etc. and people applauding.The real good acting here goes to Gloria Dickson and Isabel Jeans, especially the latter, who is absolutely hilarious as the pal of Francis.In the male roles, George Brent and Ian Hunter are appealing, but the film is so predictable and is ruined by the real lack of emotion here. The culprit is the bad writing.
drednm
Kay Francis stars as a minor actress who wants to make it on Broadway. She meets a bored architect (Ian Hunter) who has always wanted to produce a play. She has one. They team up and she becomes the toast of the Great White Way. But Hunter also has a partner (George Brent)and it's love at first sight. But he has a grasping wife (Gloria Dickson)....Fast-paced with a lot of one liners, this little Warners film is fun from the getgo. Francis is, as always, a delight to watch. Brent and Hunter are solid. Dickson is suitably vile as the shrew wife. Isabel Jeans is very funny as Marion, playing a combination of Alice Brady and Eric Blore. The 2 secretaries are nicely played by Dennie Moore and Penny Singleton.This was one of Kay's final film for Warners, and you'll note they had already demoted her to first billing but beneath the title. Her legal battles with the studio were front-page news in the late 30s. The studio put her in B films and then blamed her for slipping at the box office. Still, Francis had the last laugh; she turned in great performances even in the drek Warners gave her (while handing the plums to the new Warners queen, Bette Davis).
Neil Doyle
It's nice to report that once in awhile KAY FRANCIS actually got to emote in a fairly decent script. This one benefits from the participation of Julius J. Epstein, a writer at Warner Bros. who wrote many fine scripts for that studio and others. This one is a formula story that benefits from some clever lines and amusing dialog, factors often missing in Miss Francis' films.GEORGE BRENT and IAN HUNTER are her romantic co-stars, as architects who become involved in her show business aspirations. There's never much doubt as to which male will win her in the final reel, but getting there is pleasant enough with everyone getting a turn at some good quips thanks to a better than average script.PENNY SINGLETON (who later became "Blondie") is almost unrecognizable as a brunette secretary with eyeglasses, but the chief femme roles go to GLORIA DICKSON as a gold-digger and ISABEL JEANS as Francis' flighty roommate who is a bit annoying in her overacted role.Francis gives a smooth performance and it's a shame she never got a chance at scripts of this caliber during most of her early days at Warner Bros., the studio that had Bette Davis waiting in the wings to replace Francis as the number one dramatic star.
