Ringside Maisie

When Robert Sterling heavyweight contender confides to Ann Sothern that he really hates boxing all I could think of was the film Twins where Arnold Schwarzenegger confesses to Danny DeVito that he really hates violence. To which DeVito replies, 'but you're so good at it.'

That is the underlying plot premise for Ringside Maisie where our Brooklyn showgirl is stranded on a road and she's offered a lift by Sterling who is out doing road work under the watchful eye of manager George Murphy and trainer Maxie Rosenbloom. These guys prove useful after dancer Jack LaRue won't settle for just a professional relationship.

When Sterling says he wants out of the fight racket, two fights away from a title shot despite what Sothern tells Murphy about being a heel, my sympathies were completely with him. He did invest years of time and money in Sterling and was right to want a return on his investment. And from what I saw looked out for him pretty good.

Sterling is also saddled with Natalie Thompson a real peach of a girl friend who does nothing but eat and get carsick and won't be at his side at the climax. Later for her.

But more than anything else Ringside Maisie shows the weakness of using this kind of plot for a series film. At times she shows interest in both Murphy and Sterling and you know because there will be another film that she won't wind up with either. In real life she did show some interest in Bob Sterling because Ann Sothern took him as her second husband.

On the plus side there is a nice specialty number from Virginia O'Brien. But Ringside Maisie goes down as one of the weaker films in the series.

This chapter of the "Maisie" adventures, starring Ann Sothern, opens at a Danceland dance hall. Ed Marin directed four of these, so he was familiar with Sothern and the usual suspects. Maisie (Sothern) gets canned from the dance hall, and calls her agent Vic (Rags Ragland) to see what else she can do for work. She meets up with the boxing mug Terry Dolan (Robert Sterling), and stirs things up. ( Sothern was married to Sterling from 1943 to 1949, and it appears this was the only film they made together. Sothern has an interesting family history, for those who have the time to read her bio....) "Maisie" butts heads with the boxer's manager "Skeets", who is sure she wants to distract Dolan from his boxing. For me, its all about Virginia OBrien - she sings Bird in a Gilded Cage at the night club, and she does her usual deadpan face with small, fun, facial expressions that say so much with so little movement. Written by Wilson Collison & Mary McCall, it appears Collison died young at 47. Sothern would also make six films with Gene Raymond; for those looking for other good Ann Sothern films, my favorites are Smartest Girl in Town, and Walking on Air - tons of fun if you can catch em on Turner Classics.

Struggling showgirl Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothern) gets fired as a taxi dancer. As a train stowaway, she's caught and gets thrown off in the middle of nowhere. While walking to her next job, she is helped by young boxer Terry "O'Hara" Dolan. Skeets Maguire is his manager and Cecelia Reardon is his girlfriend. Dolan would rather not box and buy a grocery store instead.

I still like Maisie but the guys are duds. The girlfriend is a blank. Non of the characters are that compelling although I like Terry for the most part. It's a less than compelling melodrama. The boxing isn't thrilling and quite frankly, I fast forward a lot of that. A grocery store has never sounded more pathetic. I keep thinking that this movie is stuck in mud.

Another enjoyable Maisie movie starring Ann Sothern. This time around Maisie tries to help a young boxer (Robert Sterling, Sothern's future husband) and winds up falling for his jerk of a manager (George Murphy). Why does Maisie always seem attracted to pigs? The old cliché of the guy who is rude to everyone around him and has very particular opinions about women but, gosh darn it, he's "all man" and our heroine just can't help but go weak in the knees when he gives her the slightest bit of attention. One of my pet peeves with this series is that guys like this are always treating Maisie like she's garbage and she always falls for them.

Anyway, it's a decent entry in the series. The subplot about the boxer wanting to open a grocery store amused me. Virginia O'Brien has one of her weird comedy singing numbers. Natalie Thompson makes the most of a minor part as Sterling's girlfriend who has a healthy appetite. Sterling does fine, even in the more challenging dramatic parts. Sothern is perfect, as always. The biggest flaw in the cast is charmless George Murphy, whose lack of charisma makes it impossible to find anything likable about his ogre of a character.

Ann Sothern is Maisie again in "Ringside Maisie," a 1941 film also starring Robert Sterling and George Murphy. It's possible that this film is where Ms. Sothern met Sterling, her first husband.

The Maisie plots had certain similarities and have to be taken as separate stories, which has always bothered me. It would seem at the end of one film that Maisie had found the man of her dreams, yet in the next film, there would be someone else. Maisie was always the same - a flashy, down in her luck entertainer on her way to a job somewhere, getting stranded, meeting some guy that she hates at first, and then love blooms.

In this entry, the man is George Murphy as Francis, who handles gifted prize fighter Terry Dolan (Sterling). Maisie has a job performing and loses it the same night because she won't sleep with her partner (although obviously that isn't stated). She winds up being a companion to the boxer's mother. Over time, she learns that Dolan wants only to buy a grocery store - he hates fighting and is frightened every time he goes into the ring. With Maisie's encouragement, he confronts Francis, who is also a friend, only to have Francis demand he live up to his contract, with disastrous results.

These movies were, for the most part, very entertaining. Sothern never did anything she didn't shine in, definitely one of the most likable actresses ever - beautiful, warm, funny, always convincing. When her leading woman days were over, she continued her career as a character actress. She was a wonderful star, even if she didn't reach the heights of Jean Harlow or Carole Lombard. She has good support here from the handsome Sterling and the versatile George Murphy.

Good entry into the series.