Maisie Was a Lady

In this entry in the Maisie series our showgirl from Brooklyn finds herself involved with the Rawlston family. She gets involved because a drunken Lew Ayres reprising some of his role as drunken playboy Nick Seton from Holiday gets Ann Sothern fired from her carnival act.

Through some interesting circumstances Sothern winds up working for the Rawlston family whose head is Paul Cavanaugh who runs an airplane factory, son Ayres and daughter Maureen O'Sullivan who Cavanaugh thinking her a plain Jane just smothers completely. He is glad however that O'Sullivan has found Edward Ashley and maybe someone from the same social background to take her off his hands.

Ashley is from the same background, but what he is is a thoroughgoing WASP blue chip rat. When O'Sullivan finds he's two timing her it almost becomes tragic and our Brooklyn showgirl springs into action.

Of course things work out for the best as Maisie instills some common sense into these upper crust folks. It's always happy for Sothern except that when the next film in the series comes along you know it didn't work out.

I must also single out C. Aubrey Smith as the family butler who has instilled those same blue chip values that his employers have. He and Sothern have some great scenes together.

Maisie fans and others will like this.

I like ANN SOTHERN as much as the next guy, but I have to confess I was never smitten by these MAISIE movies that were tailor-made for Miss Sothern's particular brand of brassy, good-natured charm.

But at least here she gets LEW AYRES and MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN for support and a sterling performance from C. AUBREY SMITH as a wise butler. The script, however, is formula stuff and the less said about the "amusing" situation at a carnival that gets the film off to a wobbly start, the better.

It's the sort of fluff that audiences loved in the late thirties and early forties, or MGM wouldn't have made so many of these Maisie movies with Sothern from 1939 to 1947.

The improbable plot has to do with Ayres forced to hire Sothern after a judge finds him guilty of making her lose her $25 a week job at the carnival. Ayres turns out to be an unhappy alcoholic trying to forget something by being high most of the time. O'Sullivan is hopelessly infatuated with a man Maisie instinctively knows is no good. In no time at all she manages to have a sobering effect on Ayres and straightens out a few other odds and ends in the eccentric household, including a depressed O'Sullivan who was about to elope with a fraudulent man.

It's interesting how much Maureen O'Sullivan's voice sounds like another British actress--Vivien Leigh--the same timbre, inflection, and British accent. Lew Ayres, as her perpetually tipsy brother, seems to be doing a reprise of his role in HOLIDAY--but he seems to be enjoying himself, pratfalls and all.

Summing up: Formula "Maisie" entertainment is nicely performed with C. Aubrey Smith outdoing himself as the patient and worldly butler, but Maisie's brassiness is a little overdone when she lectures Ayres and a doctor on the despondent Maureen.

A surprisingly strong entry in the long-running Maisie series, this one features a fairly standard plot but strong performances from Lew Ayres and Maureen O'Sullivan. Maisie, through a an accumulation of mildly amusing circumstances, ends up as maid at a typical home of the idle (but troubled) rich. But why is the young man of th house (Lew Ayres) in a constant state of not-very-amusing intoxication? And why is Maureen O'Sullivan so neurotic, unhappy, and about to marry a pretty obvious fortune-hunter? And can Maisie save this household, or will she abandon the job in utter disgust? Watch the movie. None of the answers will surprise you that much, but Ayes' performance here is a standout, and Ann Southern's Maisie is a whole lot better than usual in the dramatic scenes. (It's permissible to fast forward through the heartwarming comic ones)

"Maisie Was A Lady" is an undiscovered comedic gem from 1941. It is not quite as humorous as "Bringing Up Baby" or "It Happened One Night" because it is more ambitious-injecting a fair amount of social commentary into the story in place of additional comedy elements. About the only explanation for its obscurity is its association with the less than overwhelming "Maisie" series.

"Maisie Was a Lady" is the fourth film in the series; each story being completely unrelated (like episodes of "The Three Stooges") and linked only by the title character, a part that Sothern specialized in portraying.

"Maisie Was a Lady" transcends the other films in the series in part because the formula had been debugged by that point yet had not yet exhausted story ideas. More important, Sothern was finally given a strong supporting cast for this one; Lew Ayres as the disillusioned rich kid, Maureen O'Sullivan as his vulnerable sister, and C. Aubrey Smith as the family's very proper but kindhearted butler. All four actors give quite possibly the best performances of their careers, at least in part due to the perfect physical casting. All four parts (especially the Ayres and O'Sullivan characters) require extensive behavioral elements to enhance the characterizations, and they manage this quite deftly.

The film begins with drunken Bob Rawlston (Ayres) heckling Maisie Ravier (Sothern) while she is working as the headless woman in a carnival sideshow. When his antics destroy the illusion Maisie loses her job. She borrows Bob's car to get home but is pulled over by the police and spends the night in jail. Maisie get off her best line when she tells the cop that she knows a pinhead in the carnival and wonders why he never mentioned having a son on the police force.

In court the next morning a sympathetic judge orders Bob to give Maisie a job for two months, at the salary she was receiving with the carnival. When sober, Bob is a really nice guy and he makes her a maid in his mansion, under the kind direction of his butler Walpole (C. Aubrey Smith). Bob's sister Abby (O'Sullivan) is also very nice. They have been neglected by their globe-trotting father, Abby has accumulated a collection of unwanted jewelry-sent to her each time her father misses a special occasion. Maisie arrives on the eve of Abby's engagement party and quickly catches onto the true nature of her fiancée Link Phillips (Edward Ashley).

Abby is devastated when she receives yet another piece of jewelry in the mail, meaning that her father is not planning to attend the party. This is compounded by revelations about Link's real reason for wanting to marry her. O'Sullivan's performance as the vulnerable and insecure (yet very likable) Abby is especially convincing and should bring out the protective instincts in all viewers.

All in all a nice little film, with excellent performances from the entire ensemble.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Maisie finds herself in yet another pickle and out of a job thanks to an inebriated Lew Ayres. When the judge rather ludicrously forces Lew to make restitution to her by employing her at his mansion she finds the joint badly in need of her common sense to sort it's inhabitants out. If you're a fan of the series than you know what to expect. The flashy Maisie through dint of her down to earth smarts accesses the situation and sets about making things right.

Ann Sothern drives this breezy vehicle like a master. Full of sass, piping up when she sees something wrong and knocking chips off of shoulders right and left these movies would be nothing without her. As always she's provided with a solid supporting cast, the best in this group being C. Aubrey Smith, and an inconsequential story but Ann's the reason to watch.