That Other Woman

During the 1930s and 40s, the term B-movie referred to a film designed as the lesser film during a double-feature. Because they were not the bigger budgeted prestige films, they were dubbed Bs. Now over the years, people have assumed B-movies were the same as bad movies...but this is NOT always the case. Many times, despite low budgets and lesser-name actors, the Bs were terrific...and "The Other Woman" proves that a B was not necessarily bad! Some of this, undoubtedly, is because the movie came from Twentieth Century-Fox and not one of the cheapo so-called 'Poverty Row' studios...though they also occasionally produced dandy movies as well.

Emily (Virginia Gilmore) has been working for Henry (James Ellison) for some time and she is an invaluable secretary. However, the man is all business around her and she wishes he'd notice her and consider dating her. But Henry is blind to her charms. One day, however, out of the blue, a lady appears in Henry's life...and Emily is both heartbroken AND jealous. So, she and a friend hatch a plan...convince Henry that a jealous mobster boyfriend is out to get him! He leaves town (not surprisingly) and Emily accompanies him in order to allow him to keep working. What's next? See the film.

This film is pretty funny at times...especially when Emily's boyfriend (Dan Duryea) shows up and Henry thinks this man is the mobster coming to kill him! And, it's also a dandy little romance...both excellent reasons to see the movie.

Virginia Gilmore has been James Ellison's secretary for five years, and in love with him. Her fiance, Dan Duryea, is worried about her working for such a wolf. Ellison doesn't notice her, being too busy with other romantic contretemps. On the advice of grandmother Alma Kruger, she writes him love notes as a mysterious woman. Various comic complications, of course, ensue.

It's a Fox B movie directed by the dependable Ray McCarey, and while the gags are good, they never really hang together. Judging by the backdrops, Ellison's office is in the middle of the Central Park Sheep Meadow, and the sets are enormous; Ellison's office is immense, Miss Gilmore and Miss Kruger share an apartment that looks to be about 3000 square feet plus a balcony; and there's a rural hotel with corridors so wide you could float it and float a bloat of hippos through. Was this a deliberate gag?

The elegant Virginia Gilmore entered movies in 1939, but she never rose above B leads and A supports. Although she continued performing on the big and small screens through about 1970, her career seems to have been hampered by alcoholism. She died in 1986, aged 66.