No Teatro da Vida

In fact this film version of a stage play by Edna Ferber and George S Kaufman, directed by Gregory La Cava is 70 years old and although it may show a wrinkle here or there - like having Adolph Menjou as the romantic lead - the youthful energy in the acting and dialog has surfed the waves of time unscathed. The bunch of girls populating the Footlights lodgings is a smashing crowd. Katharine Hepburn, brisk and Hepburnish already to the hilt. Ginger Rogers drinks, scratches and dances a duet with Ann Miller. Eve Arden, as usual, delivers the best one liners and Lucille Ball seems ready for a startling career. Andrea Leeds got an Oscar nomination and Constance Collier plays an over the hill actress that becomes Hepburn's minder, just like in real life. The film moves at an incredible speed and I defy you not to tear up when Hepburn makes her entrance with the Calla Lillies in bloom.

A very well acted classic drama with great characters that interact realistically when together, it is also supported by some fine acting. Katharine Hepburn is very strong and natural, and Ginger Rogers matches her, playing a witty and almost cynical character very well. Gail Patrick is great too, yet Andrea Leeds was the only cast member to go on to receive an Academy Award nomination, however she is the best of the bunch, giving life to a frail and emotionally unstable aspiring actress. It is a bit overly talkative, and it has at least one too many subplots going on, however the film presents such an interesting insight into the lives of wannabee actresses that these points hardly matter. It is indeed a little difficult to distinguish each of the supporting characters as individuals, and perhaps they could done with further development, but yet this factor is very much like how all the aspiring actresses in the world are: indistinguishable, until you get to know them - and how actresses get ahead in the world is a lot of what this film is about. The final few minutes of the film could have been chopped out; otherwise this is good viewing all the way through.

Director Gregory LaCava apparently liked to hit the bottle and so had a spotty career, but Stage Door is his masterpiece. Not in some personal, auteurist way, but in having achieved an almost ideal example of Depression-era movie entertainment. Its venue is the Footlights Club, a theatrical boarding house near Broadway, where lamb stew and broken dreams are the nightly staples. Among the gals with stiletto tongues but hearts of gold are Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Ann Miller, Gail Patrick and formidable Constance Collier ("Could you see an older woman in the part?"). But the movie centers on the rivalry between roommates Katherine Hepburn, as a spoiled rich kid who tries acting as a lark, and Ginger Rogers, as a plucky thespian waiting for her break. Believe it or no, those diametrical opposites (aristocratic, ethereal Kate and tough, pragmatic Ginger) work like a dream together. The script negotiates a delicate path between pathos and bathos, and somehow keeps its balance, even when one of the troupers loses her grip on reality and...Well, enough said. Best of all: this is the movie in which Hepburn gets to elocute: "The calla lilies are in bloom again...." Sheerest heaven.

Thanks to the BBC this finally appears as a long-overdue TV showing in tribute to Kate Hepburn. A stunning cast includes Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball and Ann Miller (both looking impossibly young!), Constance Collier (one of the great old troupers), Andrea Leeds, Adolphe Menjou, and in the cast but not credited an hilarious performance from Franklin Pangborn as Menjou's butler, plus appearances from Jack Carson, Grady Sutton, Ralph Forbes. It is a classic film fan's joy even if the plot does creak along on a variation of the 'heiress who wants to act' theme.

Hepburn looks fabulous and that brittle voice was rarely used better than to deliver the sparkling script required. Great role for Ginger too (time off from dancing with Fred, this being around the middle of their legendary partnership). Love it. One to treasure.

Framed and shot as though a stage play – which it was originally, but much changed for the film – and with a stage play within the staged play, le tout ensemble in this witty farce delivers a virtual non-stop, wise-cracking, virtuoso performance. Timing is everything and in comedy, it's particularly so; and the director, Gregory La Cava – who cut his teeth, in the silent era, as a director beginning in 1916 – doesn't miss a beat with this one.

From a play by Edna Ferber (of Giant fame) and George S. Kaufman, the film tells the story of what happens to a group of aspiring actresses who happen to board at a place called the Floodlights Club in New York City, supposedly. Of course, there are minor players, as in all plays – Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Ann Miller and most of the men, the exception being Adolphe Menjou as a caricature (almost) of the Big Bad Producer of those days. The majors, Katharine Hepburn (as Terry), Ginger Rogers (Jean), Gail Patrick (Linda) and Andrea Leeds (Kay) form the core about which this story revolves.

Which, when all is said and done, is about the ascendancy of Terry as an actress and the decline of Kay as another: out with the old, in with the new, if you will. That would tend to make for a somewhat pedestrian story if it were simply that. Happily, what sets this apart from, say, the almost maudlin characterization by Hepburn in Morning Glory (1933) in a similar situation (for which, however, she did receive a Best Actress award in 1934), is, first, the scintillating dialog. Which means the viewer must really listen: it goes so quickly between characters that you'll miss the one-liners and sight gags if you take a chomp on a sandwich or sip of coffee, or whatever. So, be prepared.

What's left? Well, of course, the great acting by Hepburn, Rogers, Ball, Miller, Menjou, Arden, Patrick and Leeds, the latter getting a Best Supporting nomination for her somewhat overly tearful acting; so much so, she reminded me of Olivia de Havilland, in looks and style.

The direction, already mentioned, is in the hands of an old hand and it shows, explicitly. Add to that the camera work that included almost manic cuts up and down stairs, superb face-on tracking shots and perfect timing while up to a dozen people would mill about in the frame concurrently – and with dialog. Confusing? Perhaps to some. Just concentrate on the majors.

What's more interesting for me, however, is the sub-text of this comedy. Made just before USA finally shook free of the Great Depression, as you listen, you'll hear many references to the hard times: at the Floodlights, everybody is down, but not out; rich and unscrupulous producers just want to use and abuse actresses; the women are all scraping for even the lowliest acting or dancing job at the meanest of wages; despondency and depression are endemic. Despite all of that, the women 'soldier' on, pushing themselves to their emotional and physical limits.

Women in the audience at that time must have felt the pull: don't deny your dreams of self-fulfillment, despite what chauvinistic clods of men might say and do, even powerful men. It's a stirring message, albeit idealistic, but it sets the tone for the larger section of a country that was about to engage in the world war which, in a very real sense, changed the role of women as never before. So, some may die, yes, but the show must go on...

There have been a number of introspective and self-referential films about the acting business, Morning Glory being the earliest I've seen. Others include A Star is Born (made and remade many times), All About Eve (1950) – arguably the best, I think – The Dresser (1983), The Player (1992), and others, but all heavy dramas. So, it's refreshing to find a gem that's prepared to treat the matter lightly, more rather than less.

A final thought: it must have been fun for the actors to act at being actors; it's even more fun to know that the director used much of the banter between the women off-camera to actually use in the film – much to the playwrights' displeasure, so I understand.

Recommended for all.