Lady by Choice

Carole Lombard and May Robson star in "Lady By Choice" from 1934, with Robson sort of reprising her Apple Annie character.

Lombard is Alabam, the Human Heat Wave, a fan dancer. Her publicist is attempting to garner some good publicity for Alabam and suggests that for Mother's Day, she go to a nursing home and adopt an old lady to be her mother.

Alabam sees a smiling, gentle Patricia Patterson (Robson) at the home and recognizes her as the screaming, out of control bag lady who came up before a judge (Walter Connolly) at the same time Alabam was there, brought up on a morals charge because of her dancing. Patterson, of course, never had any intention of staying in the nursing home and, there against her will, was obviously making the lives of the people who ran the home a living hell.

In the beginning, it's a match made in heaven, with Patricia living in Alabam's gorgeous apartment and wearing the new clothes Alabam purchased for her. Patricia wins $7000 ($139,185 in today's money) and pretends she inherited it, in order to convince Alabam that she can stop fan dancing and to pursue a stage career.

Problems arise later when Alabam gets together with the wealthy Johnny (Roger Pryor) who is a guardian of Patricia's (and it's hinted that she's his actual mother). Patricia is against the relationship, believing Alabam is a gold digger.

Fun movie with the absolutely stunning Lombard walking around in beautiful clothes with a lot of dead animals hanging from them. She and Robson have excellent chemistry, and their scenes are the best.

Sad to see Lombard, so beautiful and vibrant, and realize she only had eight years left. However, she left a wonderful legacy.

Fan dancer Carole Lombard is retired by order of judge Walter Connolly. When publicity man Raymond Walburn comes up with the idea that she adopt a mother, she chooses May Robson, a rowdy drunk she met in Connolly's court. It as if Apple Annie were adopted by Sally Rand. But Robson takes her duties as a mother seriously.

The first half of this movie is an unrelieved delight, with Robson basically doing the role she had performed a month earlier for Capra, and which would gain her an Oscar nomination. Miss Lombard is hilarious and crude and sexy, and the comedy is nicely balanced with sentiment as the two women take to each other. However, in the second half, when te efforts to fix Miss Lombard fail, the money runs out, and a marriage with Roger Pryor becomes the main plot, everything falls apart. The humor vanishes, people change their minds to suit the exigencies of the plot, and I lost interest. Everyone continues to offer fine performances. These are all seasoned professionals. But the story telling collapses, as does the efforts at comedy.

May Robson plays a boozier and meaner version of Apple Annie from her prior film, LADY FOR A DAY (directed by Frank Capra), though it is essentially the same character with a different name. My assumption is that the studio head (Harry Cohn) just couldn't resist reprising the character since she went over so well the year before in the Capra film.

Robson's character, Patsy, has already been arrested seven times this year for being drunk and disorderly and by now the judge has had enough and forces her to go to an old folks home. However, Patsy isn't the type to retire and when she sees a chance to escape, she does. That's because publicity seeking fan dancer, Carole Lombard, decides to do a publicity stunt and adopt a sweet old lady (complete with the press and photographers on hand to get the story). However, while it originally was done on a lark, Lombard likes the idea of doing this for real and so she keeps Robson on hand to try and reform her and give her life purpose.

However, despite her intentions, it ends up that Patsy is Lombard's benefactress. After winning a lot of dough gambling, she pays to give Lombard singing, acting and dancing lessons. When this doesn't pay off, she sets her sights to helping Lombard get control of her life. But, when Lombard sets out to snag a rich lawyer just because he was rich, Robson and Lombard have a falling out and you'll just have to see the rest of the film to find out what happens next.

The film has some excellent acting and is a nice breezy film. It's neither as deep or satisfying as LADY FOR A DAY, but is still well worth seeing. A nice romantic fantasy film.

That slam-bang opening creates a problem for all that follows. Too bad the remainder settles into rather listless soap opera. In that opening grabber, Robson's old street lady is an untamed alcoholic firebrand who shreds judge Daly's courtroom like a ragged tornado. She cares nothing about the court's staid dignity or the assembled onlookers. It's a heckuva act like nothing I've seen. But where do you go from there with 70-more minutes to fill. Well, the old lady gets adopted by court order by fan dancer Lombard who aims to tame and bring out the motherly good in her. Then too, Lombard herself wants a new career while being pursued by wealthy suitor Pryor. Maybe now an adopted mother can help her. So, will the changes each needs really take hold.

Too bad the follow up fails to rise above the strictly conventional, not helped by Pryor's lack of charisma. Lombard, however, shows her talent with a nicely under-stated performance conveying both sensitivity and depth. All in all, the two lead actresses prove better than the conventional material. But who can forget Robson's early tour-de-force that leaves the stereotype of nice old lady in cinematic shreds, which is about the only reason to catch up with this antique.

This movie was a sequel of sorts to Capra's "Lady for a Day" and in it May Robson reprises her Apple Annie character. Indeed May Robson steals the show and gives by far the best performance. This film would be Carole Lombard's last with Columbia pictures. As with her film, "Brief Moment" her director at Columbia was David Burton and the character actor Arthur Hohl is on board again as costar, here playing her crooked manager.

Carole Lombard's performance is fair. She is trying hard and keeps herself animated, but seems to come up just short. She seems to suffer from a bad case of "over-acting". However, since she is playing a "bad" actress from the wrong side of town, I can't say this is too troubling. The story is complex and on the whole the acting is fine, so overall the viewing experience is pleasing and worth repeating. The ending does tug at your heart-strings and the resolution is well thought out. The characters examine their own faults and are able to take advantage of opportunities to grow...with a little help along the way.