Platicsco
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Jakoba
True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
bkoganbing
Playing the title role of The Girl From Manhattan is Dorothy Lamour who came over from Paramount to do this independent film released by United Artists. Her leading man here is George Montgomery slipping out of his western and action features to play a young minister assigned to a parish by Bishop Charles Laughton. Montgomery is excited about going to a parish which is about to get a brand new spanking church. The problem is that it is going to be built on the site of a boardinghouse which Ernest Truex owns. Truex is also Dorothy Lamour's uncle.Montgomery is urged to board there by Laughton for a bit and he's caught in quite a dilemma. Of course that's nothing compared to the jackpot Truex is in. His generous easy going ways have put him in debt to Raymond Largay. In fact the only two guests that are paying regular are Lamour and Montgomery. The rest to be brutally frank are a gang of deadbeats. But they are delightful deadbeats like Constance Collier, Hugh Herbert, Frank Orth and more. It's just like the Vanderhof house in You Can't Take It With You.Truex's jackpot is similar to the one Lionel Barrymore is in in the Frank Capra film. The tone here is far more whimsical than the one George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart took with their story. I wish there had been more of Charles Laughton. He isn't given much to do, but does create an interesting character in his Bishop with very little to work with.The Girl From Manhattan is a pleasant bit of viewing, but could have been better.
inginrbill
I haven't seen the film since 1948 and the only thing I remember is the "mink coat/synthetic mink coat" dialog between Dorothy and Charles Laughton: The Bishop, eying the coat, asks..."has it suddenly turned cold out"? Carol, wearing the mink, explains that she drove in with her convertible top down but realizes instantly that the suspicious, curmudgeonly old Bishop KNOWS how beautiful New York models GET mink coats, offers that it isn't real mink, but synthetic and given to her for modeling it. Carol departs; The Bishop picks up the telephone and dials a number. "Fred... this is the Bishop..... Is there such a thing as synthetic mink"? (scoffingly--Fred you're going to think I'm daft for even asking a question to which I already know the answer) We don't hear the reply but Laughton's reflective face, voice and manner make the movie for me. Sure it is a knock-off on the popularity of "Going my way" but when has Hollywood ever failed to cash in on a good thing and Laughton, here, is as memorable as Orson Welles working in other peoples' less than stellar films. I will suggest to TCM that they run the film so I can see it again.
aberlour36
The first reviewer has done a fine job of summarizing the film. What remains to be said, however, is that the film is a stinker. The script is particularly awful. It was designed to appeal to small town folks, apparently, and focuses upon homey matters such as the loss of a boarding house by a wicked businessman. Lamour and Montgomery are so wholesome and giggly you want to wretch. Christians are, as usual, cast as bigoted and gossipy. But how about Charles Laughton as a bishop. (What church? Methodist?) Hugh Herbert is completely wasted. The jokes are extremely lame. And 34-year-old Dorothy as a top high fashion model in New York is, well, ridiculous. George Montgomery should have stuck with Westerns, although he does his very best with his lame lines. A company on e-Bay is selling this film right now, which is how I came to see it. Money totally wasted.
Leslie Howard Adams
Tom Walker (George Montgomery),former All-American fullback who gave up football to enter the ministry, returns to his old home town for his first assignment under the Bishop (Charles Laughton), an old friend of his father. And Carol Maynard (Dorothy Lamour), a local girl who has become New York's most famous model, comes home to visit her uncle, Homer Purdy (Ernest Truex), a boarding house keeper.She is dismayed to learn that the money she has been sending him to pay off his $3000 mortgage has been going to a bunch of non-paying guests, among them Aaror Goss (Hugh Herbert), a radio contest fanatic, and a broken-down actress, Mrs. Brooke (Constance Collier.) Tom and Carol resume their romance which was interrupted when he went away to college and she to New York. This upsets the Bishop for some reason or another...although Tom is a Minister and not a Catholic Priest and one yearns to hear Tom tell him to butt out. Especially since Minerva Urecal and Fern Emmett aren't members of his congregation, which makes them about the only two character performers of the era not in this film.Mr. Birch (Raymond Largay), holds the mortgage on Purdy's boarding house and is going to foreclose, and donate the property to Tom's church for a new building. Tom tells Carol he can't do anything about it and she gets into a snit, which is nowhere near as fetching as a sarong. Uncle Purdy comes into $3000, which he thinks is income from a bad gold-mine he invested in, but Birch refuses to accept the money and the old boarding house appears to be doomed.And would have been if Mr. Bernouti (William Frawley,) in town to supervise the construction of a new hotel on the site of the current Church property (which Birch had acquired for donating the boarding house property), hadn't got all pixilated over Carol and spilled the beans.Things tend to work out well from this point, and the only question remaining is just where did the $3000 come from. It gets answered, but not here.
