One of cinema's most stalwart supporting actors, Thelma Ritter enjoyed her only starring role in this film, in which she appears in nearly every scene prior to the one-hour mark, when Matt (Scott Brady) meets Kitty (Jeanne Crain) for their first date. The only other film that came close in terms of her screen time was The Mating Season (1951), in which she was also central to the plot.
The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951) marked the uncredited screen debut of 30-year-old actress Nancy Kulp (playing "Hazel Gingras"). She plays a character almost a decade older than herself and, for perhaps the only time in her career, is allowed to escape her plain-Jane-wallflower ever so briefly in her last scene where she is fashionably dressed. She is still 11 years away from her best-known role of "Miss Jane Hathaway" on the popular 1960s television series The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
Thelma Ritter's character, Mae Swasey, has her office in the famous Flatiron Building, located at 175 Fifth Avenue. This iconic 22-story landmark was completed in 1902, designed by Chicago architect Daniel Hudson Burnham, who also designed the Chicago World's Fair (The Columbian Exposition) in1893.
Thelma Ritter as Mae Swasey gets third billing but, playing the central character, actually has more screen time than stars Jeanne Crain or Scott Brady.
Director George Cukor was known for coaxing career-best performances from his already luminous and talented stars. In fact, it was that proficiency which had brought him to movies in the first place. During the 1920s, Cukor was an accomplished Broadway director, and happy with his chosen career --- Broadway was the better paying, more prestigious place to be in those days. As Hollywood made the transition to talkies, nervous studio executives feared their existing stable of silent directors would have no idea how to direct actors actually talking, and so hired Broadway veterans to handle dialog scenes. Cukor found himself swept up in that net, and thrust onto the movie sound-stages, where he quickly proved his mettle, and found his calling. Before long, Cukor had amassed a catalog of successes: Dinner at Eight (1933), Little Women (1933), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Gaslight (1944), Adam's Rib (1949), Born Yesterday (1950), to name just a few highlights. Cukor focused his energies on the actors, rather than camera technique. He told Peter Bogdanovich, "One can do very dazzling tricks-dazzling beauty and pyrotechnics --- but unless the human heart is there I don't think it goes very deep."