Professional Sweetheart

Mostly boring pre-code comedy with some nice direction and very few laughs. With a cast like this, it really should be better. The story is about a radio star (Ginger Rogers) known as America's Sweetheart who wants to live it up and go dancing, drinking, having sex, etc. So her PR team compromises by getting her a husband: a rube from Kentucky (Norman Foster). Some slightly saucy pre-code dialogue seems to be the main selling point for many. But it's still pretty tame stuff. Ginger dancing around in her underwear and one scene where she gets spanked are the movie's racier moments. Funniest scene is when Frank McHugh cons the rube into proposing. Ginger gives it her best but the script just isn't strong. Only a must for hardcore Ginger fans.

Ginger Rogers stars in "Professional Sweetheart," a 1933 film that also stars Norman Foster, Allen Jenkins, Gregory Ratoff, Franklin Pangborn, Theresa Harris, and Frank McHugh. Rogers plays Glory Eden, radio's Purity Girl, representing Ippsie Wipsie Washcloths. As the Purity Girl, Glory can't be anything but pure. Glory finds this annoying. All she's interested in is drinking, smoking, going to Harlem, wearing sexy clothes, and, if one reads between the lines, losing her virginity.

Her handlers decide to fix her up with a pure Anglo-Saxon, found in the Kentucky Mountains. They choose a nice-looking fan (Norman Foster) and set the two up, even having a wedding on the air. Knowing of her discontent, Kelsey Dish Rags is after her, too, and know she hasn't re-signed with Ippsie yet. The two engage in battle, and find there's a third party involved - Glory's new hubby, who takes Glory at her word about wanting to live in a Kentucky cabin and have a cow.

This is a cute film that could have been lots better, but the script isn't great and the pace drags a bit. Rogers is adorable, funny and sexy. Theresa Harris plays her maid, Vera, and is apparently uncredited, but she has a decent-sized, showy role.

As far as the film being pre-code, don't look for anything too racy. There is only some innuendo and Rogers in her skivvies.

Okay film, nothing special.

The sponsors of a rowdy radio singer find a somber PROFESSIONAL SWEETHEART to keep her satisfied and out of trouble.

Ginger Rogers dominates this Pre-Code comedy with her saucy performance as the spoiled warbler. This was her first starring role and she makes the most of it, pouting and prancing across the screen (often in her lingerie) talking bold & brassy, but actually just longing for the right male to come along and knock her into submission. Disturbing implications aside, she is an eyeful and a great deal of fun to watch.

Norman Foster deftly underplays his role as a stolid Tennessee backwoodsman whose whole life is commandeered by Ms. Rogers and the avaricious makers of the Ippsie Wippsie wash cloth. His eventual break for freedom, with Rogers in tow, will elicit deep approval from at least one gender in the viewing audience.

A wonderful cast of character actors help support the stars: Gregory Ratoff as Ginger's scheming sponsor; Frank McHugh as his eager beaver press agent; ZaSu Pitts as a silly sob sister; Franklin Pangborn as a nervous decorator; Edgar Kennedy as owner of a rival wash rag company; Allen Jenkins as his factotum; and Sterling Holloway as a slow-talking reporter.

Movie mavens will recognize an unbilled Akim Tamiroff as a hotel room service waiter.

I saw this with another RKO Ginger Rogers film from the same year.

Even though these are targeted as light entertainment, I am amazed at how fresh they feel and how experimental the structure is.

That lightness is often attributed to the lack of the Hayes Code, which lowered its dark curtain the following year. Its clear in retrospect that this was a bad thing, that it wounded an entire society, and would have destroyed it altogether had we not encountered a similar more obvious evil. And went to war.

But how does one know what is right around the corner? How does one celebrate the freedoms that are about to be taken away? Its a haunting thing in the background of this, as part of the joke is that this perfect man is "the purest of Anglo-Saxons." Another part of the joke is that sweetness, goodness and happiness is contrasted with black jive, sex and Harlem, all of which are "fun."

The structure of the thing is pretty sophisticated. Many films from these four years 1930- 33 were similarly adventuresome in their structure.

Its a show about sex and domestic values within which is a show (a radio show) about sex and domestic values. (The domestic hook is literally a dishrag.) Around this show are a collection of nattering men trying to engineer romance and predictably failing. If you study the narrative structure of date movies, you'll be familiar with tricks about how to reflect the viewer in the story. Its rather novel and somewhat perfect here.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

... and by that I mean that from its beginnings, radio was very strict about the public persona of its radio stars, regardless of what they did in private. The year this film was made - 1933 - was the last full year in Hollywood where anything goes, although these films look like family fare by today's standards.

In this environment, Ginger Rogers is given a dynamite role that really shows her flair for comedy. She plays Glory Eden, "The Purity Girl", the face - and voice - of the Ipsy-Wipsy Wash Cloth radio show. However, in private, the purity girl is the last thing she wants to be. Glory wants to go to Harlem night clubs, smoke, drink, eat rich food, and most of all have some male companionship. So the sponsors decide to appease her and meet her half way. They start a contest looking for the "ideal Anglo Saxon" - the film's words, not mine. They come up with a real naïve hayseed (Norman Foster as Jim Davey). He's a farmer from Kentucky who actually believes Glory's public image is real. He returns to New York with the show's sponsor and now Glory can go out to more public places since she has an "official" male escort.

The one drawback to the film is you never see any real relationship form between the two. It's just suddenly there. Jim just asks Glory to marry him, she agrees - obviously from the heart, because she gives him a passionate kiss. Ipsy Wipsy head Samuel 'Sam' Ipswich claims he'll wait until after the wedding and as a PR stunt have Glory sign her new contract.

But things run amok. After the wedding Jim sees Glory's true colors and they are scarlet not pure white. He decides to kidnap her and take her back to Kentucky to make a "good woman" out of her. There is an absolutely hilarious wedding night scene once Jim has her back in Kentucky that I will just let you watch. Let's just say that these two are absolutely perfect together in this scene that could have not been possible after the production code a year later.

So now two competitors are looking for Glory - they think she's been kidnapped - and both want her to sign with them. At first they don't know where she's gone. How does this work out? I'll let you watch and find out.

This film would have been good with just Norman Foster and Ginger Rogers. It is made great by all of the character actors running around busily in the background. Zasu Pitts is a dizzy reporter, Gregory Ratoff as Samuel Ipswich was born to play the over excited boss who is destined to die of a heart attack and loves firing people, Allen Jenkins and Frank McHugh are the assistants to their frantic bosses, and Edgar Kennedy is Ipswich's competition, trying to track down Glory so he can sign her to his own radio program.

Best line of the film goes to Jim - "Please God, don't let her die! She's wicked, but I love her." Questions never resolved - Will Glory's maid get her own radio career? And what DID happen between Franklin Pangborn's character and Zasu Pitts when she found him in the closet without his pants? Enjoy this little piece of RKO zaniness. I know I did.