Lady in a Corner

Movie legend Loretta Young made her final acting appearance in made for TV film Lady In A Corner. She plays the editor of a fashion magazine that is the object of a hostile takeover by British publishing magnate Christopher Neame. Neame is a Rupert Murdoch type, a man whose other publications tend toward the sleaze. What's worse for Young is that old friend and former lover Brian Keith seems to be aiding and abetting Neame and his plans.

Keith has brought on board the magazine Lindsay Frost a hip and shrewd fashion editor whom he sees as having a future. But all Young sees is a rival planted in her domain.

The film centers mostly around the conflict between Young and Frost and the woman who must feel likes she's being boxed in a corner proves to be quite the counter puncher. She exercises a long forgotten option that she should have first bid on takeover and then sets about the arduous task of recruiting the financing.

Young and Keith have a nice chemistry between them showing passion hasn't totally died. Lady In A Corner is nothing like some of Young's legendary big screen efforts, but it's a good coda to her career.

Loretta Young at 76 looks unbelievably beautiful. I enjoyed the whole movie, though the end was really not a surprise. I have been a Loretta Young fan since watching her 1950's TV show. Again, at 76 she is quite good. On the mark for every shot. Nice to see Brian Keith again. Loretta plays the editor-in-chief of a high fashion magazine, appropriately called "Grace." That word really fits Loretta Young. And this month, January 2013, Loretta Young is the featured actress on TCM. You can watch many of her movies going as far back as a silent in 1928. In her early movies she was of course beautiful and played against type as a sexy, really young woman. Later she found her niche and became angelic in such movies as "The Bishop's Wife" and "Come to the Stable" where she plays a nun. In Lady in the Corner she confronts a young woman wanting to remake the magazine as a post 1960's hip and sexy publication. But Loretta Young stands firm for grace with a small "g." Eventually the two have a somewhat meeting of the minds when Loretta becomes owner and appoints the young woman as her successor. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Don't know how I missed this in 1989, but more than 30 years after it was made, it holds up very well. Immediately, the movie reminds you of "The Devil Wears Prada," but the legendary Loretta Young in her last film, at age 76, is no stereotype. Instead, portraying a fashion magazine powerhouse, she deals with the changing times with dignity and integrity as a new generation attempts to brush her values aside. "Lady in the Corner" is not a great film, nor is it a significant sociological study, but it is an honest look at how the relentless march of time, one way or another, tries to make all that came before irrelevant. Since this is a movie about the fashion industry, notice how Loretta Young's hairdo seems timeless and the '80s mop on the head of her successor is totally dated.

Lady in a Corner (1989)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Magazine editor Grace Guthrie (Loretta Young) refuses to changed with the times and she's forced to come up with enough money to match an offer to buy the magazine she's worked out her entire life. The editor is terrified that the magazine is going to fall into the hands of Susan Dawson (Lindsay Frost), a new woman on the staff who came from a magazine that was too risqué for what Grace thinks should be allowed. LADY IN A CORNER turned out to be the final film that Young would act in. Another film would follow but she just served as narrator so technically the legends career ended with this film and it's a real shame because this film is pretty horrid. In fact, if it wasn't for the good performance by Young then this thing would have been one of the most laughably bad movies I've ever seen but thankfully the actress is here and managed to do more than what the script deserved. A great movie could have been made about what's decent or not in magazines but instead of this happening, the film just resorts to a bunch of speeches where people talk about what's decent in this day and age. Young's character cracks countless jokes about how tasteless certain things are and these speeches grow very tiresome and boring. The screenplay makes the Grace character so old-fashioned and boring that she soon also grows annoying and this isn't a good thing. I was never certain why on Earth the screenplay wanted to show her this way because are we supposed to be rooting for her? Everything we're seeing is just leading up to a predictable ending so it never makes sense for them to paint the Grace character one way and then spring on the viewer what happens at the end. At 93-minutes this film seems three times as long as it just keeps dragging and dragging to the point where you just want to scream. Young, my favorite actress, is good here, there's no question about it but it's a shame to see her waste your talents in a film like this. Brian Keith adds nice support and he and Young share some nice chemistry but in the end it's all for nothing.