Play Girl

Predictable story of department store clerk Loretta Young (she's beautiful and erotic and gives an honest performance) marrying compulsive gambler Norman Foster. Winnie Lightner provides the comic relief as her best friend. There is some pre-code innuendo, but it's all rather mild. ** out of 4.

The title is meaningless, the story just as pointless, and whatever interest there is to be derived from this girl-loves-gambler weepie comes from the delicate beauty of Loretta Young. The film is a feast for the eyes (with nary a morsel of food for thought) as masterly cinematographer Gregg Toland captures the poetry of Young's huge, soulful peepers and full promising lips with one lovestruck close-up after another. The following year's "Zoo in Budapest" and "Man's Castle" would cement her position as the Depression's most desirable waif, the pin-up girl of the bread lines. With the barrelhouse comedienne Winnie Lightner as her wisecracking pal and Guy Kibbee, criminally wasted as Lightner's swain.

Glamour is what is missing from movies today. Alone in our living rooms and Inured to the smaller-than-life figures on our little TV sets, we've lost sight of the larger-than-life gods on the mammoth screens in darkened movie palaces, surrounded by hundreds of our neighbors. Not even Marlene Dietrich photographed by von Sternberg and Lee Garmes could outshine spectacular 19 year old Loretta Young, presented here by the great Gregg Toland. This cautionary tale of a naive young woman, swept off her feet by a glib, compulsive gambler (Norman Foster) should edify young couples everywhere. This mercifully brief, cliche-riddled show should also serve as a reminder that the screenplay is the most important element in any movie.

One-third knockabout comedy, two-thirds weepie as mad Winnie Lightner gets top billing and chews up the scenery as Loretta Young's gal-pal, but is really incidental to the story and disappears for long segments. (She does get some good insults in, scrapping with fellow salesgirl Dorothy Burgess.) But the bulk of it is Loretta in distress, falling reluctantly for gambler Norman Foster, marrying him, quitting her job, getting pregnant, then throwing him out of the house when she mistakenly thinks he's returned to his gambling ways after getting an honest job as a garage mechanic. (Where'd he acquire the skill? No idea.) He returns at the darnedest time, just in time for a happy ending. The always dull direction of Ray Enright does nothing to enhance this, and it feels a little like two movies sewn into one one-hour feature, but Gregg Toland's cinematography is lovely, and Loretta in a quintessential suffering-Depression-gal role she played many times is worth watching.

Loretta Young is perfectly lit here, which enhances her beauty immeasurably, and she is quite believable in this role. I first saw her in her later movies--and on her TV show, swirling through the door every week--so it's quite a revelation to see her at the absolute peak of her talent and looks. Winnie Lightner does her usual gum-chewing, wisecracking shtick, and the rest of the cast is quite good. The script is a little weak, and things get a bit maudlin at times, although the pre-code one-liners are fun. (Winnie, as her bloomers blow off the makeshift clothesline and out the window: "Oh, that was my last pair of panties!" Loretta: "What will you do?" Winnie: "Stay off of ladders!")