Maisie Was a Lady

Ann Sothern is perfectly cast as the brassy, smart, and kind-hearted show girl, Maisie Ravier. This film adheres to the familiar path of Maisie slumming in a third-rate venue, trying to scratch out a living while fending off lecherous cads.

We find Maisie working in a carnival as The Headless Woman, her head seemingly detached from her body, as spectators look with wonder. Then Lew Ayres, playing a drunk playboy, staggers in, and begins tickling Maisie's exquisite nylon-clad legs. (Ann Sothern had quite a pair of gams). Maisie tumbles over. The act is ruined. Maisie gets fired.

Feeling guilty, Ayres hires Maisie as a maid, where she imposes order over a rich but neglected family. The cast includes Maureen O'Sullivan, and C. Aubrey Smith, whom I can hear speak all day, with that smooth, actorly, refined voice. Here Smith is playing a well-meaning butler. O'Sullivan plays Ayres's lovelorn sister (a complete 180 from her Tarzan films). And Ayres plays an alcoholic who, thanks to Maisie, sobers up, and falls in love with you know who.

Being a B movie, this lacks the MGM signature gloss. The images hew toward monochromatic. What's interesting about the Maisie character is she's a showgirl with a strict, rather conservative, moral code. But thanks to Ann Sothern's portrayal, in all the Maisie films I've seen, she never comes across as a moralizer.

Ann Sothern is a talented comedienne, and fine dramatic actress (Cry Havoc, A Letter to Three Wives), with a rapid-fire delivery and sexiness to boot. I could picture her going toe to toe with Cary Grant in His Girl Friday. She didn't reach the levels of, say, Carole Lombard, or Claudette Colbert, mostly because Ann starred in B movie screwball comedies. Two good ones are Walking on Air and Smartest Girl in Town, both from 1936, and both co-starring Gene Raymond.

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.

You can tell that the "Maisie" films were popular, especially when you compare the first two or so to this one. The budget has gone up considerably by the time "Maisie Was a Lady" was produced. Not only are the production values better but the cast is of a higher level, too. Besides the incomparable Ann Sothern, Lew Ayres, Maureen O'Sullivan, C. Aubrey Smith and Paul Cavanagh are on hand, playing members of a wealthy family. When the drunken Bobby manages to lose Maisie her job in a carnival as the headless woman and then forgets he gave her his car so that she's arrested, a judge orders him to employ her at her headless woman's salary for the allotted period of time. After she nearly ruins his sister Abby's (O'Sullivan) engagement party, Abby changes Maisie's position to that of personal maid. Maisie discovers that the young woman is very much alone, especially after she realizes her fiancée only wants her money.

This is the best entry into the series of the ones I've seen, though Sothern is great in all of them, beautiful, sassy and vibrant. Maureen O'Sullivan is wonderful as the sweet and heartbroken Abby, and C. Aubrey Smith is great as the loyal, loving family butler. Lew Ayres, when he wasn't Dr. Kildare, seemed to be typecast as a drunken playboy a good deal before the war - it's a role he plays convincingly, though in life he was a deeply religious, health and work-oriented person. Handsome Paul Cavanagh plays Abby and Bob's dad, "Cap" who gets his comeuppance from Maisie.

Great fun and a must for Sothern fans.

The Quick Pitch: Thanks to a drunk millionaire, Maisie Ravier finds herself out of work once again. To repay her, her hires her on as a maid. Maisie soon discovers that the family needs more attention than the house.

I've only see four of these movies, but Maisie Was a Lady might be my favorite so far. This was Ann Sothern's fourth Maisie film and director Edwin Marin's third. By this point, they knew what they were doing. They both understood what made Maisie work. Maisie Was a Lady features a very strong and capable supporting cast. I'm a bit shocked that actors like Lew Ayers and Marueen O'Sullivan appeared in secondary roles in a Maisie film. They were real pros. Also in the cast is C Aubrey Smith. Some of his scenes with Sothern are the highlights of the movie. Whether arguing about Maisie's jewelry or how to address the family, the two worked incredibly well together. The plot is a bit predictable. Has anyone ever watched Maisie Was a Lady and not predicted how things would end up for her? Finally, the movie looks great. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but sets, lighting, and cinematography are all better than expected. Given the fact that these weren't big budget affairs, MGM certainly got a lot of bang for their buck.

My biggest gripe with Maisie Was a Lady has to be the serious tone of much of the movie. I've come to think of Maisie as rather light-hearted, fluffy entertainment. Topics like alcoholism and suicide aren't what I expect.

7/10

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.