Reine de beauté

While my first impression of the movie was that it was corny, I soon saw the excessive exaggeration made for a fun movie. The country girl was the ultimate hick, the hero was the absolute best flier in the world, and Barton MacLane was at his evil best.

Enjoyed it.

With a great cast and nice idea, 'Page Miss Glory' sparked my interest straight away. It was further interesting seeing silent film star Marion Davies, whose films took a while to be re-discovered and even in her day her personal life and relationships tended to overshadow her career (or at least thought to be), in a talkie role that was one of her last.

'Page Miss Glory' was a decent film if not a great one. It is not one that will appeal to everybody, and hasn't done, very understandably. The same, as in not appealing to everybody, can be said for Davies herself, not hard to see why again. Won't consider myself a fan of her but she has her charms. There are however a fair amount of good things while with elements that are easy to criticise.

Davies does carry the film very well, showing herself to be a charmer, a good comedienne and the ability to command the screen. The cast in fact are the reason to see the film. Dashing Dick Powell, razor sharp Pat O'Brien (very funny too) and equally funny Allen Jenkins are the standouts in support. Patsy Kelly and Barton MacLane are also good.

Further good things are a snappy script that has its fair share of hugely enjoyable moments and a lively pace. The film is never dull, is competently directed and has some decent production values. The title song is a lovely one.

Less good is the rather thin story, in terms of the basics, that does try to do too much at points, some of it and the characters don't serve much point.

Was also disappointed that Mary Astor had too little to do and Joseph Cawthorn and Al Shean are on the annoying side.

Overall, decent but not quite enough glory. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Like "Front Page Woman," this is a comedy I'd never heard of and only discovered because of TCM. Fast paced dialogue played with relentless Looney Tunes energy make this a sharp spoof of media manipulation and public gullibility that holds up well nearly 70 years later. Marion Davies inhabits her slow witted small town girl thrust into the limelight. Dick Powell parodies himself as the Hero of the Air who falls in love with her picture and proposes before they've ever met. Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh share a wonderful rapport as the con artists behind it all. Only Mary Astor seems wasted as she has little to do though she does it with elan. Treads similar territory to `Nothing Sacred' or more recent offerings like `Simone' and `Wag the Dog.' Highly recommended.

After William Randolph Hearst took his Cosmopolitan Pictures off the MGM lot and onto Warner Brothers, Marion Davies for her first film was given the title role in Page Miss Glory. The film is based on a Broadway play that ran only 63 performances during the 1934-1935 season.

Press Agents Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh concoct a phony beauty by taking facial features from several known movie stars to create the perfect American beauty. When asked to produce her, our intrepid duo is stuck, but when hotel chambermaid Marion Davies comes in to make up the room, it seems like a prayer has been answered.

O'Brien and McHugh are playing roles that they've both done dozens of times alone and together at Warner Brothers in the Thirties. I think Pat O'Brien pulled more cinematic cons than any other player on record. Davies has some very funny moments and I know she wished she could have done more films like this one.

Dick Powell plays a Charles Lindbergh like aviator with a nice tenor voice who sings the song Harry Warren and Al Dubin wrote for the film Page Miss Glory. It's done during a dream sequence when Davies still thinking like a chambermaid, imagines herself being swept up romantically by Powell.

Page Miss Glory is one of Marion Davies better sound features and still worth seeing today.

One of Hollywood's persistent myths is that Marion Davies was a dismal actress who received starring roles only because her longtime lover was Charles Randolph Hearst. Page Miss Glory disproves that notion. She was an adroit comedienne -- and here, she breathes life into a screwball plot that would have been pretty lame without her. She's a naive newcomer to New York working as a chambermaid at a hotel where con artists Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh haven't paid the tab for a month. How they turn her into the mythical temptress, Dawn Glory, and her romance with flier Dick Powell -- who's just as delightfully dopey as she is -- take up most of the film. You can probably chalk up the negative comments about Miss Davies to Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" in which Dorothy Commingore played Kane's mistress, a Davies-like actress known for her wooden performances. But catch "Page Miss Glory" -- or any one of several other movies she made before she quit the screen to look after Hearst -- and you'll discover just how much fun she was.