Working Girls

A preCode quickie that's nothing like as saucy as the title suggests since the work it refers to is absolutely respectable; and although a personal favourite of Dorothy Arzner it certainly doesn't pass the Bechdel Test since men are practically all the girls ever talk about (and as usual with Arzner compare extremely badly with the ladies).

As a director Arzner does little to conceal the subject's theatrical origins but the large cast is well organised and differentiated (including a youthful appearance by Dorothy Stickney - a stage actress who made very few films and is probably best known in films as Gene Hackman's mother in 'I Never Sang for My Father'.)

It also befits from the mobile camerawork and vivid imagery that characterised so many early talkies.

The hayseed sisters Thorpe, June (Judy Wood) and Mae (Doroty Hall) blow into the big city with hopes and aspirations for a decent paying job and perhaps, future husband. Staying at a boarding house for women the girls find employment (during the Depression) at lightning speed along with some intense male interest from Buddy Rogers, Paul Lukas and Stu Erwin.

Directed by Hollywood's only female director at the time, Dorothy Arzner, Working Girls is a light comedy chick flick that offers moderate return. The leading ladies simply lack the comedy chops and sass in which the contemporary comedy team Zazu Pitts and Thelma Todd would shine. There's plenty of sapphic inference while the male lovers border on heels and lechers, Arzner and scriptwriter Zoe Atkins keep matters light and comic but not interesting enough to hold one's attention for long. Working Girls deserves a pink slip.

...Not even the movie literally named "The Women" could boast that.

In this film directed by Dorothy Arzner from Paramount, two young women come to New York seeking work and romance. The two girls initially dress rather loudly and alike as though they were twins, although an opening scene indicates that they are a year apart in age. June (Judith Wood) is the more world weary while Mae (Dorothy Hall) is naive. Wood reminds me of a precode version of Virginia Mayo with those flashing eyes and her brassy demeanor. The really odd thing about it is that Charles Buddy Rogers, Stu Erwin, and Frances Dee are all playing in support to the now obscure Wood and Hall.

It treads familiar precode ground as there is a society swell who uses and then loses a working class girl and gets engaged to another society swell, leaving said working class girl abandoned and pregnant. But it treads unfamiliar ground too as its cast of characters includes an anthropologist who is writing a technical book and ends up being part of a love triangle. Also Stu Erwin plays a rather hip saxophone musician in a band who is rather smooth with the ladies when, normally, Erwin plays a corn-fed everyman.

Arzner wrote female camaraderie and relationships quite well, and it shows here. When the sisters move to New York they move into a female boarding house with a variety of residents, the film takes an early scene to introduce them all socializing one Saturday night in the boarding house parlor.

The picture's true strength is in the camera work, inventive all the way through, with moving camera shots, clever framing devices, and noirish use of shadow. Harry Fischbeck was the cinematographer.

It's worth seeing if the early 30s intrigue you.

There's a lot to commend Dorothy Arzner's simple film about two out of towners trying to survive in the big bad city. Virtually everyone involved in making this were women so you'll not be seeing the usual misogynistic moralistic preaching about how to be a decent girl or the horrors that will befall you if you're a naughty one!

Whilst you can appreciate that it is superbly directed, scripted, photographed, edited and reasonably well acted, it doesn't emotionally grab you as much as you'd expect. Arzner favoured depicting realism rather than melodrama and whilst realism gives a wonderful insight into life at the start of The Depression, it can also feel a little drab.

Another "problem" is the two leads: Judith Wood and Dorothy Hall. Whether it's because we don't know them or they're just not charismatic enough, it takes a while to engage with them. It's not until the end that you finally start to care about them. Wood is the one who looks a bit like an annoyed Ginger Rogers, Hall is the one with the very annoying voice. Adopting that affected 'baby talk' really was a thing back then! They're both meant for be normal, reflecting the struggles thousands of normal young ladies would have encountered but I'm not sure whether they don't come across as maybe a bit too ordinary.... not that interesting.... apart from that voice!

The theme this picture explores is how women had to conform to the male-written rules of society. It questions a world where a woman can never be independent and only has one option, one life choice only: to get married - almost to become a complete person. But this is a light, good humoured little picture so unlike some of those campaigning Warner films made about this time, it isn't trying to change the system. It's just saying: this isn't fair but if it's played like this, life won't be too bad and you might even have a bit of fun on the way.

It's a reasonably entertaining film but definitely not one of Miss Arzner's or indeed one of Miss Akin's best. Similar storylines have been done much more explosively - I prefer my pre-codes where everything's set to eleven!

Dorothy Arzner makes the film interesting by the way she depicts the clichéd story and by the touches she adds.

An aura of lesbianism pervades the beginning of the film, set in a woman's hostel, as women are seen dancing closely arm in arm, and one (Dorothy Stickney) winks and smiles suggestively at another (Judith Wood), with the latter winking back!

Lesbianism lays dormant the rest of the film as focus shifts to sisters Judith Wood and Dorothy Hall and their attempt to become "working girls." Double entendres fill the screen as Hall is hired by lecherous professor Paul Lukas, mostly because he feels she can give him "satisfaction." Lukas suggests she get boots to protect her feet during rainy weather; caught in a shoe store by a friend, Hall explains, "My boss told me to get some rubbers!"

At the shoe store, Hall meets rich Harvard man Charles 'Buddy' Rogers and falls in love. After months of courtship, they accidentally spend an evening alone together and the inevitable happens. Equally inevitable, Rogers, having conquered, silently abandons Hall and becomes engaged to Frances Dee, a woman from his own social class. Roger's conquest has lingering effects, though, as Hall is with child. When Judith Wood finds out, she gets a gun and demands Rogers marry her sister! Rogers has no qualms about complying. As he tells a friend, he prefers Hall over Dee: Dee is of his station, his social equal and no fun, while Hall, being of the working class, looks up to him and treats him like a God, and this he likes! This is an incredibly cynical film, especially where men are concerned!

Dorothy Hall steals the picture as Jane Thorpe, her last screen role. Judith Wood, who, billed as Helen Johnson played Dot in "The Divorcée" (1930), is equally good. Less so is Paul Lukas. He gives a confused performance; not completely sleazy, but not completely honorable, and not at all funny. Lukas gives a similar confused performance in another Arzner film, "Anybody's Woman" (1930).

This film didn't get much of a release in 1931, being effectively buried by Paramount. Little wonder given its content! It's well worth tracking down. The UCLA Television and Motion Picture Archive has beautifully restored it, along with five other Arzner Paramount films. It's an 8/10.