Kitty

Paulette Goddard reached one of her cinema high points in portraying the title role in Kitty. The film is part Pygmalion, part Forever Amber, and part Oliver Twist and all entertainment.

She's a diamond in the rough, a rare beauty who was bonded out of fondling home to Sara Allgood who runs a Fagin like enterprise for girls. But Paulette has found a way to make a more honest living, she's posing for Sir Thomas Gainsborough. She's discovered doing just that by a couple of Georgian blades, Ray Milland and Patric Knowles.

Milland finds her later and discovers her origins, but the painting she posed for has come to the attention of Lord Reginald Owen who would like to get to know the lady. Milland sees opportunity here and together with his aunt Constance Collier starts tutoring Paulette like Henry Higgins did with Eliza Doolittle on the finer points of genteel manners and speech.

He tutors her well and Paulette's beauty does the rest. It's a pity that Kitty was not done in color, perhaps had it been made even the following year Paramount might have invested in it.

What they did invest in and I'm sure this was at the insistence of director Mitchell Leisen was in Art&Set design. Leisen who did this before he became a director caught all the mood and ambiance of the late 18th Century Great Britain. The Art&Set Design earned Kitty its only recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts&Science with an Oscar nomination in that category.

Leisen also did well by his players. I did so love the bickering about art with Cecil Kellaway as Gainsborough and Gordon Richards as Sir Joshua Reynolds. Also take note of Dennis Hoey as the first of two husbands Goddard acquires going up the social ladder.

Believe me, Scarlett O'Hara had nothing on Kitty.

I remembered this one from TV a hundred years ago. Paulette Goddard has the title role, and she is quite beautiful and completely convincing. Real-er than Eliza Doolittle, she slips in and out'a Houndsditch slang, but she is never comic or plays it broad. She is a lady long before she marries into royalty.

Her persistent love of Hugh (played at his caddish-sexy best by Ray Milland) is the engine that drives the story. Plenty of good supporting roles, including Sara Algood, Cecil Kallaway (playing Gainsborough),Eric Blore, and that divinely handsome eternal man-who-loses-the-girl, Patric Knowles.

I loved it - and though I am not a great Ray Milland fan, I find he can be very convincing as a lover. His only better example of it is "Golden Earrings" with Miss Marlene Dietrich. And as for Miss Goddard, we never saw enough of her to type-cast her - feisty, spirited, yes, but a little unexpected in the depth of her performance, and a very lovely lady to boot.

This is what movies used to be - good characters (somebody to root for), an intelligent story, and Glamour. I recommend this picture highly!

Mitchell Leisen was at the top of his form as a director in the mid-'40s and KITTY is a high point in his career, as it is for Paulette Goddard. This is the tale of a sharp-tongued guttersnipe (Goddard) who rises to become a Duchess in society thanks to the manipulations of the scheming Ray Milland and Constance Collier. It's a variation of the Pygmalion tale, a 'My Fair Lady' without music, sumptuously photographed in glorious B&W photography, although it's one of those costume films that would have looked even more ravishing in technicolor.

As for any further comment on the film, here's what I wrote in a recent article on the career of PAULETTE GODDARD:

"When Paramount failed to make a successful bid for 'Forever Amber', they decided to make their own costume drama about a poor wench from 18th century London who rises from guttersnipe to society woman. Paulette gives undoubtedly one of her best performances in a lavish period film that should have been in color. The N.Y. Times noted: 'Paulette Goddard has worked up blazing temperament to go with her ravishing beauty in the title role. If she is less fetching as a late 18th century duchess, it is because the script runs thin on humor and drama. In any case, she gives the work the correct touch of wry romanticism.'"

This film was a wonderful tribute to Paulette Goddard's looks and abilities. At the top of her career, she proves that she is one of Hollywood's most glamorous enduring stars. In this film she plays a guttersnipe that is chosen by Gainsborough (played wonderfully by Cecil Kellaway) to have her portrait painted in typical Gainsborough fashion. As she poses for him two handsome dandies stop by for a visit, only to be bewitched by her beauty, thinking she is of noble birth, much to Kellaway's amusement. Upon learning the truth, Ray Milland, trains Kitty to head for bigger prey, hoping to make himself rich, as he is living way over his means. Of course, she falls in love with him. Along the way to fame, Kitty becomes a Duchess and goes her own way to success, even though she still loves Milland. In the end, love wins out. A wonderful performance is also given by Constance Collier as Milland's drunken lady friend in conspiracy. The scene when she is introduced to the waif Goddard and is reposing, drunk in her bed, is hysterical. 5 stars to this one. Goddard never looked lovelier. In fact,I have an original color poster from the film. A vintage collection I am quite proud of.

Other IMDb comments on this one tell all that ought to be said about this lavish feast, unaccountably mounted in black-and-white when Technicolor was obviously called for. I suspect that the iron control that Natalie Kalmus exercised on almost every Technicolor film made through at least the mid-Forties discouraged many a producer from adding the extra expense to the budget, burdening his crew with the cumbersome three-strip cameras and the hellishly hot lighting they required, and the high cost of the final prints. Now that virtually every film is made in color, we forget that making a film in color prior to the introduction of Technicolor's own single-strip process and its rivals (i.e., Metrocolor, Warnercolor, DeLuxe Color, etc.) was a very big deal, indeed. Which is not in the least meant to say that Hollywood's artisans did not achieve some memorably beautiful work using black-and-white cameras. "Kitty" is a prime example, with a luxurious production and a cast fully able to flesh out the script's frequently funny evocation of a very pre-modern England. Even on a TV broadcast which I caught many years ago, this one was a thoroughly entertaining and eye-filling treat, and it would certainly merit a VHS and/or DVD release in my estimation.