Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Stage Door (1937)


A boardinghouse full of aspiring actresses and their ambitions, dreams and disappointments. [imdb]

Nominated for 4 Oscars:

Best Picture
Best Director: Gregory La Cava
Best Supporting Actress: Andrea Leeds
Best Writing, Screenplay

I have accidentally seen this film; I didn't expect to, or at least not last night and not all of it at once. I planned to watch it for Andrew's Kay Hepburn blogathon. I had never seen it. I was charmed.
2 reasons to see Stage Door: Ginger Rogers and the screenplay. Ginger is excellent and very funny in the first hour of the film. Once she fades away from the screen, the movie loses a lot. Her charisma is not to be doubted and she perfectly delivers the sharp dialogue. A nomanition would've been in place. The actress who actually got an Oscar nom gave one of the worst performances of the film; uninteresting, unoriginal, useful just as a plot device. The rest of the nominations are well deserved; and the movie is way better than The Life of Emile Zola, who won.
My rating for the film: 7.5/10. It lost the funny in the 2nd part. I'll probably write about Hepburn on the other blog, on Dec 11th.

5 comments:

  1. This is one of the FEW Ginger Rogers performance I like. I find her sooo blah.

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  2. I admit I haven't seen her Oscar winning performance in Kitty Foyle... actually this might be the 1st movie I see her in :P even though I'm familiar by reputation with all the Fred Astaire thing.

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  3. Well she beat out Fontaine [Rebecca], Davis [The Letter], Kate[Philadelphia Story] and they were all way better than she was. Kitty Foyle: I was not fond of it.

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  4. I can believe that! As I've seen all those 3 performances!

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  5. I figure Oscar was rewarding her for showing her range, since this was the start of her non musical career. Politics. Though Kate was my fave, I wish they had just given Joan Fontaine to save us from that horrendous Suspicion win the next year. The ultimate makeup win.

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