Lady by Choice

May Robson and Carole Lombard are both excellent as something like mother and daughter in this fast moving and enjoyable comedy.

Robson is the likable but down-and-out hard drinker who winds up before judge Walter Connolly for starting a riot in a bar; it's her seventh or eighth time up on charges, and he finally sends her off to a home for old ladies.

Meanwhile, fan dancer Lombard is brought into the same courtroom for a morals code violation—actually a failed publicity stunt arranged by her agent.

Setting out to find some good publicity, Lombard hits on the idea of "adopting" a mother. Discovering Robson in the old ladies' home, Lombard takes her home, dresses her up, calls up some reporters, and has some pictures taken. The plan is to quickly pay off the old lady and get her to scram; however, the two women begin to get acquainted….

The rest of the plot is hardly surprising; Lombard sums it up nicely at one point: "I did it for a publicity gag. But she got under my skin."

Roger Pryor is fine as the lawyer who has an old family connection with Robson, and takes an interest in Lombard. Walter Connolly is excellent as usual as the judge—though he puts on many faces (stern, concerned, exasperated) he is of course at heart an old softie.

No huge surprises but quite satisfying overall; the plot and script are no great shakes but it's all made more than worthwhile by top efforts from Lombard and Robson.

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.

Fan dancer Carole Lombard is retired by order of judge Walter Connolly. When publicity man Raymond Walburn comes up with the idea that she adopt a mother, she chooses May Robson, a rowdy drunk she met in Connolly's court. It as if Apple Annie were adopted by Sally Rand. But Robson takes her duties as a mother seriously.

The first half of this movie is an unrelieved delight, with Robson basically doing the role she had performed a month earlier for Capra, and which would gain her an Oscar nomination. Miss Lombard is hilarious and crude and sexy, and the comedy is nicely balanced with sentiment as the two women take to each other. However, in the second half, when te efforts to fix Miss Lombard fail, the money runs out, and a marriage with Roger Pryor becomes the main plot, everything falls apart. The humor vanishes, people change their minds to suit the exigencies of the plot, and I lost interest. Everyone continues to offer fine performances. These are all seasoned professionals. But the story telling collapses, as does the efforts at comedy.

Carole Lombard and May Robson star in "Lady By Choice" from 1934, with Robson sort of reprising her Apple Annie character.

Lombard is Alabam, the Human Heat Wave, a fan dancer. Her publicist is attempting to garner some good publicity for Alabam and suggests that for Mother's Day, she go to a nursing home and adopt an old lady to be her mother.

Alabam sees a smiling, gentle Patricia Patterson (Robson) at the home and recognizes her as the screaming, out of control bag lady who came up before a judge (Walter Connolly) at the same time Alabam was there, brought up on a morals charge because of her dancing. Patterson, of course, never had any intention of staying in the nursing home and, there against her will, was obviously making the lives of the people who ran the home a living hell.

In the beginning, it's a match made in heaven, with Patricia living in Alabam's gorgeous apartment and wearing the new clothes Alabam purchased for her. Patricia wins $7000 ($139,185 in today's money) and pretends she inherited it, in order to convince Alabam that she can stop fan dancing and to pursue a stage career.

Problems arise later when Alabam gets together with the wealthy Johnny (Roger Pryor) who is a guardian of Patricia's (and it's hinted that she's his actual mother). Patricia is against the relationship, believing Alabam is a gold digger.

Fun movie with the absolutely stunning Lombard walking around in beautiful clothes with a lot of dead animals hanging from them. She and Robson have excellent chemistry, and their scenes are the best.

Sad to see Lombard, so beautiful and vibrant, and realize she only had eight years left. However, she left a wonderful legacy.

She is the basic motif for see this lovely film, nice, sweet, charming. because Carole Lombard has her ordinary job and Walter Connolly has the status of glue of a so familiar story about love, money, succes and values. May Robson does more than an inspired character but she has the gift to translate the spirit of a great way to discover the world . and this is the gift of this film who has the virtue to be a trip in past. sure, a film more as slice from the spirit of a time than a great artistic work. but good opportunity for fair smile and comfortable atmosphere. and this is one of real good points of a movie who propose the flavor of a lost period.