Stage Door, 1937 (Grade B-)

Director: Gregory LaCava
Awards?  nominated for numerous Academy Awards but I don't know if it won any
Cast Katherine Hepburn; Ginger Rogers; Lucille Ball; Eve Arden; Adolphe Menjou; Ann Miller; Gail Patrick; Constance Collier; Andrea Leeds; Samuel S Hinds

sez says --this was written by Edna Ferber and George S Kaufman and it has a better than average, snappy-talk, script.  Young women want to go on stage. They live in a boarding house together and form a family--ie the group squabbles and takes care of each other. Hepburn, a rich girl slumming, moves in, and against her father's wishes she aims to be an actor.  The rich father wants his daughter to fail so she will give up the stage and come home. He secretly funds a play for her to star in .... meanwhile the hardworking and talented young women in the boarding house are exposed to all sorts of indignities--which they suffer lightly because of their wit and banter.  What story of happens re: Hepburn's opportunity is woven into and around the lives of the women at the boarding house. And I'll not say more so as not to spoil the story. But while Hepburn's situation plays out  the story explores the problems the women in the boarding house face. First and foremost is malnutrition. But a close second is men who want to take advantage of them--and those men, who don't believe they should even be trying to make a life for themselves, lie and connive and offer to make them STARS, etc. The story is ok--and the acting is fun. The best thing about this is is is about a society of women.  Men are not seen as heroes, nor are they seen in particularly positive light. They are a backward looking option for these women--to get married and have a family is not anyone's obvious goal.  (Grade B-)