Danseuse étoile

With the rows and rows of dancing girls all in unison, I would have sworn that Busby Berkley or Ziegfeld had to be involved in this, but no sign of them mentioned on IMDb. Alice Brady is Kitty Lorraine, the pushy mom who makes sure her daughter Shirley (Maureen O Sullivan) gets ahead in show biz. As usual, Brady is loud and a little lower-class, but you know exactly where you stand, and she means well. O'Sullivan made a whole bunch of Tarzan movies, and was in the Thin Man. Franchot Tone is Shirley's boyfriend in one of his earliest film roles. O'Sullivan sings (or pretends to sing) several numbers. Story is soooo similar to Gypsy Rose Lee... she would have been about 20 when this film came out. Novel and screenplay of "Stage Mother" written by Bradford Ropes. Viewers will recognize Alice Brady as the silly giggling aunt from Gay Divorcée; she seems to have died young at 47. The cast list shows Larry Fine (one of the Stooges) as a customer in the music store, but I must have missed him. Fun story. Plot starts a little slow and sad, but gets better as it goes along. Director Charles Brabin had been making films for 20 years, and this was one of the last ones he made. Turner Classic shows this now & then, and has it listed as G rated, but that can't be right....

Husband wife high wire act Freddy and Kitty Lorraine split up the team while she tends to having a child. When dad is killed in a fall she and the new baby move in with his staid New England parents. Buzz killers from the outset Kitty decides to take kid Shirley (Maureen O'Sullivan) on the road and push her into a stage career. With mom managing her career gets traction and she's soon headlining. Making a nostalgic visit to her old home in Boston she meets Warren (Franchot Tone) a painter and the two fall in love. When mom gets wind of it though she puts a stop to it as well as shake down his family for ten grand. Shirley is devastated and seeks to get out from under the influence of her mother.

Stage Mom is Alice Brady's picture as she cajoles and plays hardball with all comers to advance her daughter's career including pimping her to a prominent politician causing things to get hot enough to blow town and head for Europe. Brady's raspy voice suits her hard bargaining style well as she negotiates with some pretty tough customers along the way. O'Sullivan's Shirley is sharp innocent counterpoint to a point of insipid. She dances poorly and remains naive and childlike most of the picture while her suitors (Franchot Tone and Phillip Holmes) can only wish they had a backbone like Kitty.

The dance scenes are flat and uninspired as director Charles Brabin does his best to mask O'Sullivan's abysmal hoofing abilities with close-ups while at the same time offering some pretty racy pre code enforcement shots of the chorus replete in diaphanous costume.

There are a handful of well played scenes (particularly with C. Henry Gordon) in Stage Mother as Brady brawls her way to the top with tough talk and a touch of extortion void of sentiment but in the end it depends on sentimental tug to bring the curtain down and the limpid denouement forcing Kitty to go meekly simply reinforces the films mediocrity.

In some ways, "Stage Mother" is a decent film. But to me, it was really lacking something that it sorely needed....characters you could care about and like. Too often, folks are either jerks or plastic.

When the film begins, Kitty (Alice Brady) is a stage star, as is her husband. However, he's killed and Kitty is stuck...pregnant and without much of a life for the kid. So, she moves in with the husband's family and spends a few years living the suburban life. However, she becomes bored and goes back to the hard life of the vaudeville stage and she leaves her daughter with his family. Years pass, Kitty's prospects are exhausted so she takes a behind the stage job--and brings her daughter, Shirley (Maureen O'Sullivan) to live with her. Kitty doesn't do this out of the goodness of her heart. Her plan is to make Shirley a star and live off her! And for the remainder of the film, Kitty manipulates her daughter and sees her rise to the top. But, when Shirley meets a nice guy (Franchot Tone) and wants to settle down, Kitty decides to destroy this relationship for her own selfish reasons. What's next? See the film...or not.

As I mentioned, the characters (particularly Kitty) all seem like low-lifes. As for Shirley, she's nice...but in a very bland way and has little backbone. All in all, a curiously uninvolving story that should have been either more humanized or more hard-edged.

By the way, there are a lot of song and dance numbers that looked like they were choreographed by Busby Berkeley's less talented cousin...or dog.

There are older films one sits through to see a specific star, or because there is a legendary scene as highlight, but frequently when stories of this period so close to the silents or snatched from the theatre move into explication, they drag, are full of static scenes or wooden performances. Stage Mother is no such case--powered by the energetic, electric "on" personality of Alice Brady in most of the film, a high interest in plot development ensues, and the expected conflict between mother and daughter similar to what Merman and company essayed in Gypsy some 25 years later keeps the narrative moving right along--it doesn't hurt that peppy Franchot Tone pops in for an early film appearance as a wealthy suitor, or that Maureen O'Sullivan can hold her own with Brady. Some folks complain about the final melodrama, but given the period when audiences expected to be send home feeling good, and given that this is an MGM studio product, it doesn't matter one way or another. It's a fun film to watch! Singing! Dancing! Jokes Aplenty!

Flying trapeze swinger Alice Brady (as Katherine "Kitty" Lorraine) is grounded when she becomes pregnant, then takes the baby girl to go live with her husband's family in Boston, Massachusetts. Eventually, with encouragement from comedian Ted Healy (as Ralph Martin), Ms. Brady returns to the vaudeville stage. When her daughter grows up to be gawky Maureen O'Sullivan (as Shirley), the now older Brady makes pretty Ms. Sullivan over as the leggy star of a successful Busby Berkeley-type chorus girls show.

"Stage Mother" attempts to convey some seedy theatrical realities, but they are hesitant and humorous instead of dramatic. Writer Bradford Ropes helped adapt his original novel, but obviously had to tone down much the sexual content; what's left is a little silly. Two attractive young men, painter Franchot Tone and cruiser Phillips Holmes, court pretty O'Sullivan. Brady slices through the leading role. A highlight is the production number for "Beautiful Girl", which effectively celebrates the female form.

****** Stage Mother (9/20/33) Charles Brabin ~ Alice Brady, Maureen O'Sullivan, Franchot Tone, Phillips Holmes