Girl 27

"Girl 27" is a fascinating story of Hollywood history and the workings of the studios. The studios owned Hollywood: the police, the DA, all the way up. The movie magazines were studio organs. They had private hospitals, doctors on payroll. Anything could be hidden.

Patricia Douglas was a young girl working in Hollywood as a dancer. "I moved like J. Lo" she tells the interviewer, David Stenn. One day she and some other women were asked to report to what they believed to be a film set, and they were sent to Western Costume to get costumes.

When they arrived on the "set," it was a convention on a farm for MGM salespeople. Patricia Douglas was raped by one of them in a field. It was hushed up, and the doctor, under MGM's influence, put in her record that she had been treated for VD.

Patricia attempted to sue but lost, so she took it to Federal Court. MGM bribed her mother and lawyer to make the case go away, and they did. The lawyer never showed up in court any time the case was called. Her mother got a liquor store out of it.

At the time of the documentary, Patricia Douglas was 84, living alone in Las Vegas, when she was found by writer-producer Stenn. At first he spoke with her on the phone - she would say so much and then hang up abruptly. Finally she agreed to meet him and tell her story.

There have been many complaints about Stenn's presence in this film. I used to work for David Stenn. When he says he loves Patricia Douglas, he's not playing nice to get the story at all. He's not that kind of person.

As for his presence in the film, she would only talk to him, so he was stuck there - yes, he could have cut himself out. In the beginning, I think he had to lay the foundation as he did - he is a film historian, an expert on MGM and that era.

Did he have to mention Jackie Onassis? Probably not, but I think it made his credentials all the more impressive.

There's nothing uncommon in a documentary about looking at records and having someone go over them with you. So maybe in total, five minutes of Stenn could have been cut. I do not think he took away from this woman's agonizing story.

Not only is this a searing documentary about the machinations of MGM and Mayer, it is such a sad commentary on the time during which Patricia Douglas was young. Families swept incidents such as rape under the rug.

There was no place she could go for help. She was never able to move on. It ruined her life. She said she was frigid. She was married three times; she wanted a child desperately to love and be loved, yet she gave the child to someone else to raise. She couldn't get too close to anyone.

Her beautiful daughter tells a sad story about their relationship or lack of it. Patricia never told anyone what had happened to her. When the story broke in Vanity Fair, she told her mother that she was so incredibly proud of her. And her mother said nothing.

It's such a tragic account, it breaks your heart. An entire live ruined. Patricia could have tried to move on, but how does one do that when violated and no one acknowledges it? When everyone expects you to act as if nothing's wrong?

The studio heads were sleazes. When I interviewed actress Rita Gam, an incredibly beautiful woman even today, she said she received many offers from Hollywood.

But she smartly waited until she was offered a contract for $1250 a week. Why? Because if you made less than that, she said, you were part of the "visiting firemen" circuit, in other words, a prostitute.

Starlets were expected to sleep with men for jobs, and at the behest of the studio. Even Rita Hayworth's husband tried to pimp her out to Harry Cohn.

I think the story overrides David Stenn's presence in the film, which some find offensive. Personally I didn't mind it. I loved the film clips that were interjected. A nice touch to a horrible story.

The 1937 scandal is definitely a story worth learneing about. There are some interesting interviews, great film references, but the director of the film clearly does not know how to direct a documentary. There is an ego about him that is just not acceptable. He insinuates himself into the story and into the life of the woman who back in 1937 was Girl 27. He never passes up an opportunity to bring up the fact that he is also an author of celebrity biographies. He never passes up the opportunity to let his audience know the famous people he has worked with. I am not someone who believes there is a perfect cookie cutter way of making a documentary film. Sometimes it's necessary for a director to knock down that fourth wall and make himself or herself a presence in the film he or she is producing. A good director should never steer the focus of the subject matter onto himself or herself, though. David Stenn is not just annoying as a documentary filmmaker, he is disgraceful as a documentary filmmaker. This documentary should be taught in film schools about what NOT to do as a documentary filmmaker.

Anyway... this is the only existing documentary that covers the subject matter of the 1937 MGM sex scandal. It's a story worth knowing. It's unfortunate that the story was brushed under the rug as long as it was. In this, the time of #MeToo and #TimesUp, it's really important not to brush such stories under the rug. History absolutely repeats itself. 'Girl 27' as well as other documentary films and biopics like 2019's 'Judy', for example, are evidence that Louis B. Mayer was the Harvey Weinstein of the '30s, '40s, and '50s. Some people live their whole lives and die without being brought to justice for their horrible behavior. Justice sometimes comes in the form of unearthing the truth postmortem, denying their legacies praise, and condemning them for their insidious existence.

I have rather mixed feelings about this movie. It brings up an interesting, forgotten scandal, which I give it credit for. But I felt the movie was always straining a little too hard to be interesting, as though the filmmaker knew he really only had a 40-minute short but was determined to get a feature length film out of it.

The movie is a mix of a documentary about the rape and a documentary about uncovering the rape, and I found that an interesting, fairly successful approach. The various film clips range from relevant to flippant. The filmmaker's worst instincts came out during the interviews with the victim. Tossing in film clips earlier made a certain amount of sense, but doing the same thing during her painful answers felt gimmicky and insensitive and just took away from the power of the scene. Sometimes you have to be willing to let a person or a situation speak for itself, but that doesn't happen in this movie.

Are you serious, NY Times? Much appreciation for the courage and bravery this woman mustered when she was just a girl facing the legal monster of MGM and its public office cronies. As far as I'm concerned, she was raped multiple times by the Hollywood machine, her own mother, the legal system. Is it any wonder she developed a thick protective shield and does not trust people. But The NY Times refusal of the obituary was the topper for me...who reads your scummy rag anyway, you birdcage liner.

I was glad to see that many of the other comments felt like I did - that this was a very compelling story - a story that should be brought to light, but that it is very badly handled by the inexperienced filmmaker. Now David Stenn is a talented writer and my friends who devour Hollywood biographies speak very highly of his (I believe he's written about Clara Bow and other big Hollywood Golden Era stars) and it is interesting how he came across this awful scandal that was covered up by MGM but he seems to not trust the power of poor Ms. Douglas' story and I actually was cringing with the horrid decision to add Hollywood movie clips of women being shaken or slapped or pushed down (from various fiction films) - as Ms. Douglas begins to tell of the actual sexual assault and how it destroyed her - the forced clips almost seemed to parody what was happening (which I am sure is the opposite effect the director wanted). The way the story is told, the way he films a lot of the interviews - it is just amateurish. I read the article Stenn wrote in Vanity Fair and that is much more complex and fascinating than the film. Hollywood truly had the power to sweep all of its dirty secrets under a large rug and this story is a perfect example of that. Ms. Douglas was a very brave woman to even try and stand up to MGM but of course they crushed her with newspaper lies and huge powerful law firms. The film is still worth watching because of the subject matter but as far as documentary skill - it truly fails.