Stage Mother

Kitty Lorraine (Alice Brady) was one of those parents that drives their children to be something they may or may not want to be. Kitty was in the entertainment biz so she wanted her daughter, Shirley (Maureen O'Sullivan), to be in the entertainment biz. As a result, she dominated her life. She made every decision for her and had her whole life mapped out. She would live vicariously through her daughter, and she was indicative of millions of other parents out there.

We tend to hear about the sports parents, or the stage parents because their children become famous and let the world know about their upbringing. We don't hear about those sports parents or stage parents whose children never made it big. We also don't hear about the doctor parents, lawyer parents, or other career parents who drive their children just as hard.

Shirley didn't have a normal childhood, and what's worse is that when she became a young adult, she was just as attached to her mother as when she was a child. It's like once the parents get their hooks into their children they never let them go.

I thought "Stage Mother" was spot on. The movie focused on lost love due to mothering which was following with the sentiments of that era. If a (s)mother(er) was going to make her daughter miss out on anything back then it would be love, not another career or simply being happy. Shirley's happiness had to be directly attributable to the man she fell in love with and it would've been sacreligious to think her happiness came from some other source.

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If you find yourself humming the songs from Gypsy after seeing this film you can't help it. What Alice Brady does with the title role in Stage Mother makes what Ethel Merman did on stage and Rosalind Russell on the big screen as Mama Rose would make Mama blush.

Left with a baby daughter to raise after her husband is killed during a performance of their high wire act, Brady takes the little girl to her in-laws in Boston where they still frowned on associating with the theatrical profession. She can't provide so for a while she leaves the girl with the in-laws and takes up with fellow performer Ted Healy.

But eventually Brady quits the stage for the business end of show business working for a booking agent. And when she discovers that her daughter who grows up to be Maureen O'Sullivan and has talent, watch out world.

Watching this film all I thought of was how unfortunate Gypsy wasn't written two generations earlier. What Brady could have done with Mama Rose.

Sad to say that the film is spoiled by a really bad ending which I won't reveal. Look for good performances by Franchot Tone and Phillips Holmes as a pair of callow youths O'Sullivan takes up with. Holmes comes with a title as well. Also if you look quick you'll see Larry Fine of the Three Stooges in a small part.

Snappy before the Code dialog and a great performance by Brady are wasted in an unreal climax.

There are older films one sits through to see a specific star, or because there is a legendary scene as highlight, but frequently when stories of this period so close to the silents or snatched from the theatre move into explication, they drag, are full of static scenes or wooden performances. Stage Mother is no such case--powered by the energetic, electric "on" personality of Alice Brady in most of the film, a high interest in plot development ensues, and the expected conflict between mother and daughter similar to what Merman and company essayed in Gypsy some 25 years later keeps the narrative moving right along--it doesn't hurt that peppy Franchot Tone pops in for an early film appearance as a wealthy suitor, or that Maureen O'Sullivan can hold her own with Brady. Some folks complain about the final melodrama, but given the period when audiences expected to be send home feeling good, and given that this is an MGM studio product, it doesn't matter one way or another. It's a fun film to watch! Singing! Dancing! Jokes Aplenty!

In some ways, "Stage Mother" is a decent film. But to me, it was really lacking something that it sorely needed....characters you could care about and like. Too often, folks are either jerks or plastic.

When the film begins, Kitty (Alice Brady) is a stage star, as is her husband. However, he's killed and Kitty is stuck...pregnant and without much of a life for the kid. So, she moves in with the husband's family and spends a few years living the suburban life. However, she becomes bored and goes back to the hard life of the vaudeville stage and she leaves her daughter with his family. Years pass, Kitty's prospects are exhausted so she takes a behind the stage job--and brings her daughter, Shirley (Maureen O'Sullivan) to live with her. Kitty doesn't do this out of the goodness of her heart. Her plan is to make Shirley a star and live off her! And for the remainder of the film, Kitty manipulates her daughter and sees her rise to the top. But, when Shirley meets a nice guy (Franchot Tone) and wants to settle down, Kitty decides to destroy this relationship for her own selfish reasons. What's next? See the film...or not.

As I mentioned, the characters (particularly Kitty) all seem like low-lifes. As for Shirley, she's nice...but in a very bland way and has little backbone. All in all, a curiously uninvolving story that should have been either more humanized or more hard-edged.

By the way, there are a lot of song and dance numbers that looked like they were choreographed by Busby Berkeley's less talented cousin...or dog.

STAGE MOTHER is almost a great film, starring Alice Brady as a so-so Vaudevillian who pushes her daughter (Maureen O'Sullivan) into "the business" when it's clear she can't make it on her own. As in Applause (1929), we see the seedy side of the business with lots of backstage scenes. Film starts out with pregnant Kitty (Brady) watching her husband do an aerial act that goes bad. After she has the baby she goes to "his people" in Boston and is grudgingly taken in by the stereotypical Boston family. Eventually she can't stand it and moves out, leaving the kid. Years later she gets the kid back and pushes her into dancing lessons etc. Of course she becomes a star. She's preyed upon by men (Ben Alexander) and has romances with a couple guys (Franchot Tone and Phillips Holmes) before the end credits.

Brady is great as the ferocious mother whose life centers on controlling her daughter while she lives off her. O'Sullivan (looking very busty indeed) is very good until she's supposed to be this dancing and singing mega star. O'Sullivan can't do either, so it's long shots of some other performer while O'Sullivan smiles sweetly in the close-ups. Tone and Holmes are fine as the romancers. Ted Healy plays a ham comic and the second husband. Others include Russell Hardie as Fred, Larry Fine (minus More and Curly) as a store customer, Lillian Harmer as the Boston mother, and C. Henry Gordon as the hood. No IMDb info on who plays the old maid sister or the auditioning kid singer.

Songs include "Beautiful Girl," which also showed up that same year in GOING Hollywood and the infectious "Dancing on a Rainbow," which is a big production number. This MGM production has the look and feel of a Warners backstage musical, which in this case is a good thing.