Street of Women

In "Street of Women," the love of women inspires men to build. These skyscrapers are testaments or monuments to womankind, so says Roland Young to friend and fashion designer Kay Francis. He keep proposing to her, but she keeps declining. Instead, she finds love in married man Alan Dinehart, but when he presses his wife for a divorce, she won't agree to it. By the way, Kay's brother and Alan's daughter, played by Gloria Stuart, are in love and plan to marry, but the usual complications set in. This is a very enjoyable little film, which is grand in production value and storytelling. Kay has never looked better and/or that much in real love! She has good scenes with actor Alan Dinehart that resonate with the viewer; these are real people we care about. But who will make the sacrifice for others' happiness? Who will live happily ever after? Roland Young, known for his "Topper" movies, is the man to solve the problems, as he seems to be the one with his head on his shoulders. "Street of Women" is a unknown entry in the career of Kay Francis that deserves to be shown on TCM more often.

Did you know that Alan Dinehart has a voice like William Holden's? Quite possibly, you never knew who the man was before you considered watching this film, as in my experience. I have not investigated his career to determine how many films he was entrusted to 'carry,' but in Street of Women, he is quite capable of filling the role of romantic leading man opposite a most lovely, refined Kay Francis. His voice is just one aspect of his pleasing presence.

The film's title implies a connotation of the risque sort, which is not at all depicted here. In truth, when they are tested, most of the characters of this film live by an imposing code of honor which hardly allows them to pursue pleasure with recklessness. Despite some of the typical dramatic obstacles of a romantic feature: the unyielding wife who makes you root for the other woman (!); a daughter who is unforgiving because she is a bit untried in the realities of life; Street of Women provides an ample showcase for Francis to exude her gentility and warmth and gives you the opportunity to discover the attractively reedy-sounding Dinehart. And rather than the 'scoundrel' role he seems often to have been assigned, here Roland Young is allowed to play understanding matchmaker. Recommended escapism.

I happen to be a huge fan of Kay Francis...my mother and her sisters felt that Kay was the ideal woman when they were in their teens in the l930's. Kay made her best films from l930 to l939. In this film, she is the intelligent, successful, and gorgeous lover of a married man whose wife is a bejeweled stinker. Alan Dinehart, who I've seen in very few films, is the unhappy husband in love with the beautiful dress designer Kay plays. The wonderful Roland Young wants to marry Kay, but she adores her loving married beau. Young is always great and here plays the suitor who is also in business with her beau, yet doesn't give up proposing to Kay. Alan D. has a pretty daughter who adores her daddy and gives him lots of kisses on the mouth, and who is this darling, Gloria Stuart? None other than the actress from Titanic...who throws her jewels into the ocean at the end of the film...she was so pretty as a young actress. Here she denies her daddy her approval to leave her mother so he can marry Kay. And who does young Gloria fall in love with? Kay's beloved young brother who won't forgive Kay for having a married lover, none other than his own fiancée's father! In the end, it's a noble Roland Young who saves the day, and younger brother marries his love, Gloria Stuart,(their wedding scene is a heart breaker!), and Kay and Alan are united at the end. I adore Kay Francis films because of her famous sense of style..her dark hair contrasting with her very white skin, and her huge, light colored eyes are devastating. Women went to her films just to see her hairstyles and her wardrobe; she was also a very very good actress, very believable. She had an amazing figure and the oh-so-fashionable clothes hung on her tall figure so well. God bless her and TCM for these gems.

It's just a pathetic mushy melodrama with a script that sounds like it was written by a 12 year old girl from the eighteenth century. It's so staggeringly unspecial that you might start to think that AI generated pictures have been around a lot longer than you thought.

When I find a film made by Archie Mayo that's good - and there are a few: PETRIFIED FOREST, BLACK LEGION are fantastic, I'm really surprised because most of his output is bland, lazily directed rubbish like this.

He clearly could be a great director when he needed to be but usually he didn't need to. For most of his career, his job wasn't to be a good director because he was just part of the Warner Brothers factory. His function was to turn up, get a bunch of people to dress up and read their lines then his product would be used to fill some screen time in the Warner cinemas for a few days then it would get thrown in the bin. Throw-away films like this didn't need to stand the test of time, they weren't meant to be watched afterwards. If the story was any good it might get remade a few years later. Nobody would ever think of rooting around in the archives to dig out something like this even if it was only a year later. If Mr Mayo is looking down on us now watching this he'd be completely dumbfounded....and possibly embarrassed.

Once you realise that it's Kay Francis who gives the best performance in this you need to be worried. She just does what she always does but the rest of them seem like they've simply turned up for the paycheque.

Whatever sordid ideas "Street of Women" might bring to mind, this film has nothing to do with any of them. This romantic triangle (or perhaps larger geometric figure) is more daring than it would have been after the Production Code cast its pall over Hollywood because its sympathies are squarely with the adulterous couple over the neglected wife.

In the depths of the Great Depression, audiences loved nothing more than seeing films about millionaires with no greater problems than their bed partners (or, after The Code, their platonic friendships).

The hero here is a financier building skyscrapers; the architect (no doubt to Ayn Rand's dismay) is an otherwise ineffectual sort who moons over a dress designer unaware she's the financier's mistress. The wife's crime is she wants to move about in high society rather than coming up with keen ideas to advance her husband's career as the mistress does. Since everyone has money to burn, nobody gets hurt.

As a soap opera about the sex lives of the very wealthy, what distinguishes this from similar epics? There are some interesting plot twists involving relationships between other family members that affect the two main characters. (I'm trying to avoid spoilers, though you've probably seen some by now.) There's intelligent and sometimes witty dialogue. Best of all, there's the fast pace common to the better pre-code films which, like this one, pack more plot and action into sixty minutes than today's two and a half hour epics.

Don't expect a real wild pre-coder, just a well-done romantic drama, and enjoy if that's your thing.