Lady by Choice

Fan dancer Carole Lombard 'adopts' tippler bag lady May Robson as her mother in order to improve Carole's public image. The old lady winds up becoming a mother figure to Carole and tries to help her become successful in a more respectable career. But when that falls through, Carole starts to date a young lawyer friend of May's for his money. This creates a rift between the two women and May determines to stop Carole from taking advantage of the lawyer.

May Robson is great. Carole Lombard is beautiful and has good chemistry with May. Fine support from Walter Connolly, Roger Pryor, and Arthur Hohl. Lady for a Day is one of my favorite Frank Capra films. It has great Damon Runyon characters, fun dialogue, and a lot of heart. This is a cash-grab follow-up to that movie but not a sequel. May Robson plays a similar character but this is not Apple Annie. None of the characters in this movie are quite as colorful or enjoyable as those in the Capra movie. Still, it's entertaining enough thanks to Lombard and Robson.

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.

Carole Lombard plays a Sally Rand type fan dancer and May Robson does her Apple Annie role again in Lady By Choice, a nice comedy from Columbia with overtones of Frank Capra in the making. At Columbia seeing Frank had come up with a winning formula, Harry Cohn was looking to copy it wherever he could. Who knows he might have put Capra's name on it for the foreign market like he did with If You Only Could Cook and Capra never found out.

In Lady By Choice, Lombard's press agent, Raymond Walburn, gets an idea for Mother's Day for Lombard to adopt a little old lady. So she goes to a senior citizens home and picks out May Robson, a gin guzzling old woman in the tradition of Apple Annie. Robson comes not only with her gin, but with a young attorney from a wealthy family, Roger Pryor who's been charged by his late father to serve as some kind of guardian angel for her when she gets tanked up and rowdy. Robson's in need of a lawyer especially when she's in court in front of Judge Walter Connolly.

It's not Lombard's greatest role, but she does well with it. May Robson is merely starting where she left off in her Academy Award nominated Lady For A Day that was directed by Frank Capra. The only weakness in the film is Roger Pryor who's a rather insipid type in a role that called for someone like Joel McCrea. A nice choice by TCM to run for Mother's Day.

Carole Lombard plays a fan dancer (working under the moniker "Alabam, the Human Heat Wave") who hooks up with a haggardly, dice rolling, beer guzzler named Patsy when she adopts her out of the "old ladies home" as her new mother, a publicity stunt for Mother's Day. Moving in with Alabam into her swanky apartment, the two women soon bond over shots of straight whiskey, Alabam buys the old lady a new wardrobe, then both try to reform the other of their bad ways. And yes indeed, there is a male love interest for Lombard, a character who fits somewhat loosely into this whole plot.

Interesting film, the first half better than the second, I thought, but I do like the interaction between Carole Lombard and May Robson who plays Patsy - they come across as pretty chummy, which works well for this story. Lombard appears in a number of gorgeous outfits here, everything from glamorous, fur-sleeved dress to satin rompers (how 'bout that ragged old hat with the dead bird hanging off it that Patsy wears in the beginning?!). Worth seeing.

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.