The Florodora Girl

The late 1890's are lovingly reconstructed, with wonderful costumes and nice sets. Very good script. Marion Davies as a chorus girl who doesn't want to be a rich man's toy has lots of chances to show her stuff. There is only one Floradora dance routine and it is quite calm. The final scenes are in two color Technicolor.

The Florodora Girl (1930)

*** (out of 4)

Set during the Gay Nineties, this film stars Marion Davies playing a chorus girl who is being taught how to play the "game" by a couple veterans. The game consists of landing a rich husband and she has one guy (Lawrence Gray) interested but the friends are constantly messing up the relationship. Soon the man finds himself broke and his mother objects to him marrying someone without money. It's funny but I never really considered Davies one of my favorite actresses but after viewing this movie I realized that I had seen the majority of her sound work, which is a lot more than I can say for some of my favorites. What I've come to realize with Davies is that even when the film isn't all that good and even when her performance might not be right, she still manages to come across very charming and fun. Whenever she is on she can be dynamite and that's exactly what she is in this piece, which has to be one of the best, if not the best film she did during the sound era. I was really impressed with how wonderful her performance was here because the comic timing was perfect but so was the more dramatic moments. I thought the first hour was extremely tight and well directed with Davies really going all out. There are countless funny situations and the majority of them work extremely well including one bit where she's on a swing with Gray. There's also a very funny sequence dealing with a "becoming a father" joke. Gray is also very good in his spot as the boyfriend and the rest of the supporting cast are good as well. With that said, there's no doubt that this film belongs to Davies. The final ten-minutes were originally shot in Technicolor but it has faded so bad that the sequence looks orange but I still enjoyed seeing Davies in somewhat color.

"Floradora Girl" is an early sound picture that starred Marion Davies and a little known Lawrence Gray. Both had been leads in silent films and had some success transitioning to sound. But his career faded fast as many new male actors were getting established in sound pictures. Davies' career also faded fast, but that was mostly because of her personal life. She wasn't a great actress, but a good one in several films. It depended on the material she got, and a few years into sound pictures, she wasn't getting the scripts that many new and up-and-coming actresses were getting.

The plot for this film isn't exceptional, but Davies is okay as Daisy. The cast is sizable, but except for a couple supporting actors, there are few familiar faces in this cast. What lifts this film some, is its very good portrayal of some period things of history. The setting is supposed to be in the 1890s. Of special interest to sports fans are scenes of a football game that show players with minimum equipment, and a couple of very unusual plays, including, the wedge.

There is some humor - the funniest scene being efforts by a crowd of people to resuscitate Daisy (Davies) after she faked drowning to be rescued by Jack (Gray). Except for the scenes of turn of the 20th century things of interest, there isn't a lot to recommend this film as above average run-of-the-mill.

Marion Davies is the last of the original New York Florodora Girls who hasn't married a millionaire. She's an unsophisticated girl, despite her surroundings. She has attracted numerous admirers of the masculine persuasion. Some of them have intentions that are less than honorable. However young Lawrence Grey has standing in the Four Hundred as well as a considerable fortune, and seems to love her sincerely.

Harry Beaumont directs his performers as always performing, playing sophisticates without any real sophistication. To an audience that was coming out of the Roaring Twenties into the Depression, with Warner Brothers about to plumb the pre-code depths of the gangster film, it might have been nostalgic for a bygone, simpler era. It certainly works that way for me, and the slightly degraded 2-strip Technicolor finale adds to the effect.

Nance O'Neil is charming in the unwelcome role of the mother telling Miss Davies toget her paws off her son. With Walter Catlett, Ilka Chase, Vivien Oakland, Jed Prouty, and of course George Chandler.

A rich young man woos THE FLORODORA GIRL of his dreams -- but is he sincere?

For nearly 20 years, no other actress in America was the recipient of so much effort to make her a big movie star than Marion Davies. As mistress of the powerful media mogul, William Randolph Hearst, Davies appeared in one lavish film production after another. Hearst's seemingly bottomless pockets spared no expense and Marion lived like a queen both on screen and off. (Their huge California mansion, now called Hearst Castle, crowned a coastal estate of unstinted extravagance, while the saltwater sequence for FLORODORA GIRL was filmed in the waters in front of the enormous Santa Monica beach house Hearst built for her.)

Never one to put on airs, Davies won the hearts of her fans and the other Hollywood stars with her warm generosity and good spirits. On the screen Hearst preferred seeing her in heavy historical romances, but she much more enjoyed light comedy fare which better displayed her talents. Which is exactly what she does in FLORODORA GIRL, getting to sing & dance a little, playing a member of the famed sextet, looking for love with the right boy but not willing to compromise her morals in the search. Davies had been a Ziegfeld Follies Girl before being carried off by Hearst; the film poses a few questions about love and success which must have given Marion something to ponder.

Lawrence Gray, an important MGM musical comedy star at the beginning of the Sound Era, does well in his role as the vivacious society boy who learns a few things about maturity while wooing Davies. He had partnered with Marion before, in Silent & Sound pictures, and they have a good on-screen chemistry.

The supporting cast provide a few laughs: Walter Catlett, Louis John Bartels & Claud Allister as well-heeled stage door Johnnies; Ilka Chase & Vivian Oakland as aging, tough-as-nails Florodora Girls; Jed Prouty as Marion's alcoholic father; and George Chandler as her big-toothed cigar store boyfriend. That's Anita Louise who shows up very briefly as one of Gray's younger sisters.

MGM gave the film a nice feeling of the 1890's with its horseless carriages, puffed sleeve fashions and frequent songs. The early Technicolor with which the film closes is most pleasing to the eye.