Lady für einen Tag

It's not often (especially these days) that a character actor or actress pulls a leading role. This movie rates my 8/10 vote mostly on the strength of the marvelous character performance of May Robson in the central role as Apple Annie, an elderly down-and-out who must somehow preserve the imaginary persona she has built for herself to her daughter, soon to arrive from Paris with a prospective husband in tow. Robson was nominated for an Oscar, as lead, and richly deserved it for her tragicomic characterization.

Frank Capra's excellent direction (also nominated for an Oscar) keeps the plot unfolding with the speed and apparently effortless fluidity so characteristic of the comedies of this period. Capra did not win the Oscar that year, but this film launched his series of feel-good dramas and sparkling comedies that netted him three subsequent Oscars.

But this is far more than a feel-good comedy/drama. It's an excellent movie that stands on its merits outside the genre, with a solid supporting cast. Capra's own remake (Pocketful of Miracles), doesn't meet the standard he himself set here. And although I have tremendous respect for Bette Davis, who played the lead in the remake, it is the difference between a good performance and an exceptional portrayal. Now that I've seen this version, May Robson simply IS Apple Annie.

Born in Australia in 1858, May Robson certainly never envisioned as career in Hollywood films. She had a long career as a stage actress and appeared in about a dozen silent films, including CHICAGO with Phyllis Haver, and RUBBER TIRES with Bessie Love. Both film survive. She made her talkie debut in MOTHER'S MILLIONS in 1931 and appeared in another 50 films until her death in 1942.

Oscar nominated for playing Apple Annie, she lost the award to Katharine Hepburn for MORNING GLORY. Robson should have won, but her role was really a supporting role in this film, based on a short story by Damon Runyon.

As the irascible old apple peddler, Robson had the role of her career. Seems she has a daughter (Jean Parker) in Europe. The old lady gets mail at a swanky hotel thru a friend who works there. But when the letter comes that the daughter is coming home with a husband to be (and his father, a Spanish count), Annie is in trouble.

Dave the Dude (Warren William) a gambler, won't make a bet without getting an apple from Annie as a good luck token. When she goes missing, the Dude sends out a search party, locates Annie, and learns of her plight. They hit upon a plan to set her up as a lady with the Judge (Guy Kibbee) as her distinguished husband. Annie gets a makeover and everything is set for the daughter's return.

But the stupid cops get wind of what's happening and think there's a big swindle going on. Will the cops squash the charade? Will Annie be exposed as a fraud?

Robson and William are terrific. There's also Glenda Farrell as the brassy Missouri Martin (based on Texas Guinan) who joins in to help the charade. Co-stars include Ned Sparks as Happy, Nat Pendleton, Robert Emmett O'Connor, Tiny Jones, Hobart Bosworth, Samuel S. Hinds, Walter Connolly, Halliwell Hobbes, and Barry Norton.

A fairy tale to be sure, but one with a touch of reality. Director Frank Capra used several real-life panhandlers in the cast. It's also notable that Annie admits she was never married.

This movie must have played very well to depression-era audiences. The story of an apple seller who has been lying to her daughter who has done well for herself in Europe is sweet, heart touching and funny.

Great, quotable lines in the script, well written. The outdoors night photography is luminous, everything seems to glow, a scene in an outdoor garden with the daughter and her fiancee kissing behind a glass water fountain is beautiful to this day.

The ideas of friends and strangers coming to a needy person's aid prefigures such later Capra classics as "It's A Wonderful Life". In fact, they would make an excellent double feature together.

In our cynical times, movies like this can be seen as hokey, in fact the name Capra was frequently turned into Capra-corn, even in his day. But the fact that his movies are still treasured and enjoyed today shows that goodness is still an enduring quality and that being drawn to goodness and fairy tales like this gives us hope that those feelings are still in us.

Recommended highly.

Glenn Ford and Betty Davis in color fall short competing with the BW original version with lesser known but more convincing actors. Lets face facts. Glenn Ford never played a convincing bad guy/bad boy. On the other hand little known Warren William had to convince the viewers that he wasn't a bad guy all the time. Dave the Dude is basically a bad guy with a touch of good. Even his act of kindness to Annie is self serving. This movie is a perfect example that technical advances don't make a better story, lesser known actors can play the role better, and age can define whether any work of art can stand up to the ultimate critic - Time. Different audiences, tastes, standards and means of portraying the play, are the ultimate judge regarding the worth of the production.

This sublime, charming fairy tale, about an old apple seller (the lovely May Robson) who is helped by a gangster named Dave the Dude (Warren William) and his buddies in order to make her rich and respectable for her returning daughter and in-law from Spain, is conceivably Capra's freshest, most underrated classic, perhaps with the exception of "The Bitter Tea of General Yen", which was also released in 1933. While "Bitter Tea" was a commercial flop, "Lady For a Day" proved to be Capra's first big success with the Depression-era audiences and a sign of things to come. A must-see!