Aging middle aged actress Verree Teasdale is starring in the latest dramatic potboiler on Broadway, a tearjerker that has the men's mouths ajaw (probably from their awareness of how bad it is) and the women dabbing their eyes. A gold digger asks "daddy" for the same yellow dress that she wears in the closing scene, even though the movie viewer only hears Teasdale, not seeing her. In the audience is handsome George Brent, one of those with their eyes rolling over how bad it is (a sentiment echoed by one of the financiers he sees in the audience), and soon Brent is spending time with the vain Teasdale. One night while waiting for her, Brent is interrupted by the arrival of young Jean Muir whom Brent finds out is the daughter that Teasdale has been hiding away in boarding school, the product of a brief marriage during Teasdale's poorer days that was easier to hide. Teasdale wants to send Muir off to an aunt's while the school quarantine is on, but Muir doesn't want to go. In fact, she's become enamored of Brent and wants to stay. Having no choice, Teasdale introduces her to society, but the snobs of the uppercrust are not Muir's type, and an engagement to stuffy Charles Starrett results in a party where all of Muir's frustrations are revealed thanks to his snobby mother Virginia Hammond's demands on Muir's behavior.
The glamorous Verree Teasdale is forgotten outside the legion of classic movie fans (so memorable in two other 1934 Warner Brothers movies, "Dr. Monica", also with Muir, and "Fashions", as the rival to Bette Davis), and I once had to explain to a tour guide of the Hollywood Cemetery that she was so much more than just Adolph Menjou's widow. Tall and regal with a very lady like presence that could turn acidic if you crossed her, Teasdale reminded me of another forgotten tall supporting player, Natalie Moorehead. In this film, Teasdale is trying to hold onto her image as a glamorous star, not the shop girl of her youth who married a poor man and got widowed early on, only to rise through the ranks to become a popular actress. She is desperate to hold onto what she has gained, so daughter Muir, as much as she loves her, becomes the bane of that attempt especially when Muir's feelings towards Brent become obvious. Muir, a rising starlet, could have become as big at Warner Brothers as Bette Davis was, but like another star at Warner's at the time (Ann Dvorak), Muir had other ambitions that couldn't be controlled by the studio system. Brent shows once again how he can make his leading ladies look good just by standing next to them in evening clothes and never upstaging them. This is an interesting and glamorous entry in the usually tough Warner Brothers line-up of pre-code movies, quite subtle in its display of sin, but obvious to those of us who look past what the script is telling us to see.
The glamorous Verree Teasdale is forgotten outside the legion of classic movie fans (so memorable in two other 1934 Warner Brothers movies, "Dr. Monica", also with Muir, and "Fashions", as the rival to Bette Davis), and I once had to explain to a tour guide of the Hollywood Cemetery that she was so much more than just Adolph Menjou's widow. Tall and regal with a very lady like presence that could turn acidic if you crossed her, Teasdale reminded me of another forgotten tall supporting player, Natalie Moorehead. In this film, Teasdale is trying to hold onto her image as a glamorous star, not the shop girl of her youth who married a poor man and got widowed early on, only to rise through the ranks to become a popular actress. She is desperate to hold onto what she has gained, so daughter Muir, as much as she loves her, becomes the bane of that attempt especially when Muir's feelings towards Brent become obvious. Muir, a rising starlet, could have become as big at Warner Brothers as Bette Davis was, but like another star at Warner's at the time (Ann Dvorak), Muir had other ambitions that couldn't be controlled by the studio system. Brent shows once again how he can make his leading ladies look good just by standing next to them in evening clothes and never upstaging them. This is an interesting and glamorous entry in the usually tough Warner Brothers line-up of pre-code movies, quite subtle in its display of sin, but obvious to those of us who look past what the script is telling us to see.
