Our Blushing Brides

Enjoyed this 1930's film starring Joan Crawford, (Gerry March) who lives with several girls who all work for a department store, some girls sell perfume and most of them are fashion models. All the girls are looking for the right man to marry who has money and they also want to throw away their alarm clocks and stop working and have babies. Gerry March has been around the block a few times and is always on guard against men who try to hit on her mainly because they have hurt her very badly in the past. Gerry tries to caution all the girls and stays pretty much to herself until Tony Jardine, (Robert Montgomery) enters her life and she really falls for him in a big way until he brings her to his secret tree house which looks like a penthouse suite and stairs that fold up. Tony is her boss at the department store and after the tree house scene, Gerry writes him off her list as a typical male trying to score. Great entertaining film, and if you like to see what women wore in the 1930's this is the film for you.

Jerry March (Joan Crawford), Connie Blair (Anita Page), and Francine Daniels (Dorothy Sebastian) are best friends and department store sales clerks. They share an apartment in New York City. Tony Jardine (Robert Montgomery) is the charming older son of the store owner and he has eyes for Jerry. David Jardine (Raymond Hackett) is the less responsible younger playboy brother and he likes Connie. Martin W. Sanderson (John Miljan) flirts with Francine.

Jerry and Tony have a good meet-cute although it's a little creepy in today's world. In a modern movie, Tony would play up the exaggerated visual of being bowled over. The premise remains the same throughout history. Ah-OO-Ga! This is a good setup for a light fun rom-com. The modeling does get a bit repetitive although it was probably daring for its time. The dancing isn't special enough to be good musical work. Then it turns darker and ends in something really dark. This is pre-Code and an early talkie for Joan Crawford as she transitions from the silent era. She is certainly a star in this new cinematic landscape.

Here we witness the reunion of Joan Crawford, Dorothy Sebastian and Anita Page two years after their 1928 hit, Our Dancing Daughters. This time, perhaps reflecting the input of left- wing screenwriter John Howard Lawson, the girls are proletarian department store workers instead of the privileged creatures they played in the previous film. The early scenes pan through the dressing room where the employees dress for the day's work, catching snatches of shopgirl conversation. But the three central characters are still struggling with that old demon, sexual morality in the modern era. In this round, Crawford is the cynical one who has been abused so often by men that she has developed a distinct armor against their advances; Sebastian and Page are utter dupes who, in their yearning to marry money and escape a life of drudgery, fall for the first superficial moneyed suitor that comes along. Robert Montgomery, Raymond Hackett and John Miljan are the flawed menfolk they encounter.

Though the plot developments are contrived even by the standards of the day, this is not a bad entertainment but it suffers midway when the progression of events grinds to a halt in favor of an elaborate but not very imaginative fashion show, ostensibly to impress female moviegoers, or perhaps to show off Crawford's beautiful body and skill at posing. She gets the star treatment here, frequently in dazzling close-up. Sometimes her facial expressions veer a bit into semi-dementia, but she restrains herself admirably. Anita Page does very well as the innocent victim of the thoughtless Hackett. Sebastian's role is in the wan mode of ZaSu Pitts; she has an amusing drunk scene. Montgomery, born to wear white tie and tails, must have gotten a big career boost with this one.

If nothing else, this film can probably boast the most impressive tree house ever created for the screen.

Three roommates (Crawford, Sebastian, and Page), who just happen to work in the same department store, seek rich husbands during the Great Depression. The stars outshine a somewhat dated and unbelievable script, that was a follow-up to Our Dancing Daughters & Our Modern Maidens. A big moneymaker in its day.

This was the third film in the Joan Crawford flapper trilogy - (Our Dancing Daughters (1928)/Our Modern Maidens (1929)/Our Blushing Brides (1930)). The first two were silent, the third was a talking picture. This was not Joan Crawford's first talking picture nor her first film with costar Robert Montgomery - both those honors go to 1929's "Untamed".

You can really see the onset of the Great Depression having an effect in this final film of the trilogy. The first two films involve lots of melodrama, but there is also widespread prosperity and a focus on living it up with partying that reflects the excesses of the 1920's. This final film really isn't about living it up at all. It's more about three shop girls just getting by and how the men in the lives of two of them (Anita Page and Dorothy Sebastian) promise the good life but end up raining down tragedy upon them, while the third shop girl, Gerry (Joan Crawford), has her own cynical attitude towards men reinforced by watching the fates of her two friends. That makes the ending seem a little tacked on and even unbelievable to some degree, but it's still a good film.

Unfortunately this film is neither on DVD or VHS. "Our Dancing Daughters" and "Our Modern Maidens" can be found on used VHS copies, but the transfer is pretty blurry. None of the three is on DVD, and considering their place in Joan Crawford's filmography, I find that to be a shame.