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.

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.

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.

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)

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.