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Play Girl

  • 1932
  • Unrated
  • 1h
IMDb RATING
5.9/10
379
YOUR RATING
Norman Foster and Winnie Lightner in Play Girl (1932)
DramaRomance

A young woman's financial problems continue through a troubled marriage to a gambler.A young woman's financial problems continue through a troubled marriage to a gambler.A young woman's financial problems continue through a troubled marriage to a gambler.

  • Director
    • Ray Enright
  • Writers
    • Frederick Hazlitt Brennan
    • Maurine Dallas Watkins
    • Maude Fulton
  • Stars
    • Winnie Lightner
    • Loretta Young
    • Norman Foster
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.9/10
    379
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Ray Enright
    • Writers
      • Frederick Hazlitt Brennan
      • Maurine Dallas Watkins
      • Maude Fulton
    • Stars
      • Winnie Lightner
      • Loretta Young
      • Norman Foster
    • 13User reviews
    • 3Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos7

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    Top cast34

    Edit
    Winnie Lightner
    Winnie Lightner
    • Georgine Hicks
    Loretta Young
    Loretta Young
    • Buster 'Bus' Green Dennis
    Norman Foster
    Norman Foster
    • Wallace 'Wally' Dennis
    Guy Kibbee
    Guy Kibbee
    • 'Finky' Finkelwald
    Dorothy Burgess
    Dorothy Burgess
    • Edna
    Noel Madison
    Noel Madison
    • Martie Happ
    James Ellison
    James Ellison
    • Elmer
    Edward Van Sloan
    Edward Van Sloan
    • Moffatt - the Boss
    Sheila Bromley
    Sheila Bromley
    • Wedding Girl
    • (scenes deleted)
    Betty Farrington
    Betty Farrington
    • Mrs. Braddock
    • (scenes deleted)
    Ralf Harolde
    Ralf Harolde
    • Willie
    • (scenes deleted)
    Nat Pendleton
    Nat Pendleton
    • Dance Hall Plumber
    • (scenes deleted)
    Harold Waldridge
    Harold Waldridge
    • Messenger
    • (scenes deleted)
    Robert Bennett
    • Floor Boy
    • (uncredited)
    Eileen Carlisle
    • Rose, a Salesgirl
    • (uncredited)
    Eddy Chandler
    Eddy Chandler
    • Delivery Man
    • (uncredited)
    Charles Coleman
    Charles Coleman
    • Floorwalker
    • (uncredited)
    Jack Curtis
    Jack Curtis
    • Carpenter in Hardware Department
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Ray Enright
    • Writers
      • Frederick Hazlitt Brennan
      • Maurine Dallas Watkins
      • Maude Fulton
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews13

    5.9379
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    10

    Featured reviews

    4Fred_Rap

    Loretta the lovely

    The title is meaningless, the story just as pointless, and whatever interest there is to be derived from this girl-loves-gambler weepie comes from the delicate beauty of Loretta Young. The film is a feast for the eyes (with nary a morsel of food for thought) as masterly cinematographer Gregg Toland captures the poetry of Young's huge, soulful peepers and full promising lips with one lovestruck close-up after another. The following year's "Zoo in Budapest" and "Man's Castle" would cement her position as the Depression's most desirable waif, the pin-up girl of the bread lines. With the barrelhouse comedienne Winnie Lightner as her wisecracking pal and Guy Kibbee, criminally wasted as Lightner's swain.
    5gridoon2025

    Empty fluff

    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.
    21930s_Time_Machine

    Marginally less excruciating than a tooth extraction

    Warner Brothers should have been embarrassed to release this. The story is both absurd and boring, the characters are as unbelievable as they are annoying and the direction is of the: just read your lines in turn and avoid any interaction with your fellow actors. As for the acting, Loretta Young is the only person who is actually acting giving this movie the impression that her scenes are taken from a different (professional) film which have been spliced into this dreadful piffle.

    Worst of all is Winnie Lightner. I don't like to say anything bad about people, she might have been a lovey person but as an actress she is beyond terrible. She's so extraordinary awful that she almost makes this film unwatchable. Words cannot describe just how bad she is!

    One slightly interesting line is said by Miss Young which portends her future fling with 'the king of Hollywood' - commenting on her beau's kissing technique she says: 'They can do better in movies - come on Gable, get hot.' There's absolutely nothing else of interest in this.

    Maybe the reason this was made was simply to provide evidence to to those people now who believe that films of the 1930s were dreadful?
    6AlsExGal

    odd title for an odd little film

    Sometimes I think Warner Bros. named these early 30's films just as quickly and casually as they filmed them. There is nothing in this film about "play-girls". Also, although Winnie Lightner is top billed, this is really Loretta Young's picture. Loretta plays Buster Green, a salesgirl in a department store who wants to eventually become a store buyer. She wants no part of marriage and especially motherhood since her own mother died in childbirth. As they say, life is what happens when you are making plans. Buster falls for and marries the charming Wally Dennis, who claims he is a salesman but is actually a professional gambler. She doesn't find out until after they are married about the gambling, but Wally promises to get a real job. Months later, Buster finds out she is pregnant and only then finds out Wally didn't actually get a job like he promised he would - he is still gambling.

    Loretta Young does the same wonderful job with this material that I have come to expect from her as she runs the gamut of emotions from hope to disappointment and from anger to terror, and she is one of two reasons to watch the film. The second reason are the antics of top-billed Winnie Lightner, who is actually playing in support here in this, the twilight of her film career. She plays Buster's best friend, roommate, and coworker prior to Buster's marriage. Her comic one-liners and facial expressions are priceless. If you know much about her rather short film career, one of the funniest moments in the movie is when she is scrubbing the apartment bathroom at night while the song "Singin in the Bathtub" plays in the background. That was the song she sang in the Warner Brothers all-talking revue in 1929 - "The Show of Shows" - when she was at the top of her game. Lightner is also quite good opposite Guy Kibbee, who plays the store assistant manager who loves her and won't let her work in any of the store departments where she might meet a man she likes better than him.
    6marcslope

    An odd one

    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.

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    Related interests

    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942)
    Romance

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Film debut of James Ellison.
    • Goofs
      Near the start of the film there are brief glimpses of various store departments. In the plumbing department, Winnie Lightner is in the background perched on a sink. That makes no sense, as it is only later on in the story that her character is reassigned from hardware to plumbing (One publicity still for the film is a close-up of Winnie on the sink, but there is no such scene in the movie. Probably a sequence involving Winnie in the plumbing department was deleted, but then Warners decided to use that opening shot figuring nobody would notice Winnie in the background).
    • Quotes

      Georgine Hicks: [Wind blows away a pair of panties hang drying in the window] Oh! Oh! Oh-oh-oh!

      Buster 'Bus' Green Dennis: What's the matter?

      Georgine Hicks: Oh, there goes my last panties!

      Buster 'Bus' Green Dennis: Well, now what are you gonna do?

      Georgine Hicks: Keep off of step ladders.

    • Soundtracks
      The Wedding March
      (1843) (uncredited)

      from "A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 61"

      Music by Felix Mendelssohn

      Played briefly when the passport is shown

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • March 12, 1932 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Love on a Budget
    • Filming locations
      • Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA(Studio)
    • Production company
      • Warner Bros.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h(60 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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