Free, Blonde and 21

It's a women's hotel in New York City, and we get to see several of its occupants at first. Soon, however, the focus centers on Lynn Bari, who can afford better, but enjoys the place, and who begins a budding romance with doctor Henry Wilcoxon; Mary Beth Hughes, who is a drama queen. She fakes a suicide attempt and is taken to Wilcoxon's hospital, where she wins the heart of his assistant, Robert Lowery; and Joan Davis who offers some gawky, snoopy comedy relief as one of the maids.

Lowery thinks he's engaged to Miss Hughes, but she starts dating Alan Baxter on the side. When she asks him what he does for a living, he demonstrates by robbing the owner of a roadhouse, shooting him, and getting shot in return. Miss Hughes decides to call in Lowery, telling him Baxter is her brother. He operates on Baxter in Wilcoxon's beach house, but Baxter dies, and then his corpse is dumped for the authorities to find, which eventually brings Inspector Thomas Jackson to Wilcoxon's attention. Lowery has vanished, but Wilcoxon won't peach on him.

At first I thought that Ricardo Cortez was directing an remake of 1936's CLUB DE FEMMES. Although it looks like the writers saw the French movie, they went their own way with the more melodramatic story. It's a pretty good movie from 20 Century-Fox's B division, even if there's nothing extraordinary about it.

"Free, Blonde and 21" is a B-movie from Twentieth Century-Fox. In some cases, B-movies are enjoyable and well made, however this film suffers from a problem inherent in many Bs...it lacks subtlety. The problem results from a short running time of only about an hour...and it's hard to be deliberately paced when you rush through the plot like this. Worth seeing and interesting...but it could have been so much better.

The story is set at a women's hotel. The main focus is on two very different women, Carol (Lynn Bari) and Jerry (Mary Beth Hughes). Carol is a nice lady. Jerry, on the other hand, is very superficial, uses people and craves excitement...even if it ultimately is sabotaging. They both are dating successful surgeons but while Carol has a healthy relationship, Jerry uses her man and ends up getting involved with the wrong sort of guy. And, when things get ugly, Jerry tries to lie her way out of it. Clearly Jerry learns nothing from her mistakes.

If it sounds as if the plot is a bit preachy, it come off this way. Again, the length of the movie forces it to develop too quickly and ultimately it becomes predictable as a result. Worth seeing...but ultimately just a time-passer that could have been better.

The film was mediocre at best, but was fun to watch, knowing the quality of story-lines of the era. Lynn Bari gives a good performance as the stalwart woman while, at first, I did not like Mary Beth Hughes as the perpetual "bad girl", after reflection, I believe that she gave the best performance of any of the actors in the film. She was believable!

The only problem I could see in the film was the in the resolution of the plot: that I felt sorry for the used and jilted Doctor Steve, and wondered what happen to him when all was done.

I found Joan Davis to be interesting as the comedienne character - it seemed that every film of that era had one. Enough of a comedienne, in fact, to peak my interest to find out more about her. I found myself comparing her to Phillyis Diller, Martha Rae, and even Carmen Miranda, and that, though she may not have become as well known (depending on whom a person asks), she could have been. A note: she did a lot later on in that new media - television.

As in so many of the films of the era, and by today's standards, it is so shocking and amazing as to the infringements of rights by law enforcement back then.

All in all, it was a fun film to watch - especially in pre-World War II.