Play Girl

Predictable story of department store clerk Loretta Young (she's beautiful and erotic and gives an honest performance) marrying compulsive gambler Norman Foster. Winnie Lightner provides the comic relief as her best friend. There is some pre-code innuendo, but it's all rather mild. ** out of 4.

Loretta Young is perfectly lit here, which enhances her beauty immeasurably, and she is quite believable in this role. I first saw her in her later movies--and on her TV show, swirling through the door every week--so it's quite a revelation to see her at the absolute peak of her talent and looks. Winnie Lightner does her usual gum-chewing, wisecracking shtick, and the rest of the cast is quite good. The script is a little weak, and things get a bit maudlin at times, although the pre-code one-liners are fun. (Winnie, as her bloomers blow off the makeshift clothesline and out the window: "Oh, that was my last pair of panties!" Loretta: "What will you do?" Winnie: "Stay off of ladders!")

Given her origins--her mother died while giving birth to her--Buster Green (Loretta Young) is averse to taking risks and not inclined to marry. Her plan is to rise above her station as a department store clerk through dedicated hard work. But when she meets Wallie Dennis (Norman Foster) she finds herself succumbing to his spontaneous style and marries him--only to find out on their honeymoon that he makes his "living" as a gambler.

He promises to reform but betrays her faith in him time and again. So when she finds herself pregnant she feels she has no choice but to cast him out and go it alone. Faced with mounting bills and prospect of giving birth to her child in poverty, she turns to gambling herself in a desperate attempt to reverse her fortunes.

19 year old Loretta Young is superb in this cautionary romantic tale; her combination of pluck and beauty make us root for her all the way. Winnie Lightner, playing her stalwart friend and defender Georgine, lends the story a down-to-earth realism as well as comic relief.

Gregg Toland's cinematography is crisp and economical--a highlight is the suspenseful scene that overlays a slow zooming in on Young's reactions over exciting footage of the horses at the track as her horse gains on the others in the race. Ray Enright's pacing of the story is masterful: the last ten minutes as things come to a head will keep you on the edge of your seat.

This general storyline has been filmed dozens of times--but Loretta Young's performance and the taut direction makes this one a keeper!

One-third knockabout comedy, two-thirds weepie as mad Winnie Lightner gets top billing and chews up the scenery as Loretta Young's gal-pal, but is really incidental to the story and disappears for long segments. (She does get some good insults in, scrapping with fellow salesgirl Dorothy Burgess.) But the bulk of it is Loretta in distress, falling reluctantly for gambler Norman Foster, marrying him, quitting her job, getting pregnant, then throwing him out of the house when she mistakenly thinks he's returned to his gambling ways after getting an honest job as a garage mechanic. (Where'd he acquire the skill? No idea.) He returns at the darnedest time, just in time for a happy ending. The always dull direction of Ray Enright does nothing to enhance this, and it feels a little like two movies sewn into one one-hour feature, but Gregg Toland's cinematography is lovely, and Loretta in a quintessential suffering-Depression-gal role she played many times is worth watching.

Loretta Young works as a shopgirl in a department store, alongside Winnie Lightner. She has no intention of marrying, but she and Norman Foster fall for each other, and so they are married. Then she discovers he makes his money by gambling. She doesn't like it. They need a reliable paycheck, especially when she falls pregnant. He agrees to get a regular job, but doesn't. Finally she throws him out.

Although the movie is about Miss Young, Miss Lightner is top-billed, and a few minutes concern her courting by the inept Guy Kibbee. Ray Enright, one of Warners' warhorse directors does a solid job in this soap opera, with a nice small role for Noel Madison, and a definite sympathetic view of the working girl. Look out for Flora Finch as an annoying customer.