The Girl from 10th Avenue

The Girl From 10th Avenue is one of those B programmers that the brothers Warner were throwing Bette Davis into before they realized what a talent they had. She had already done and got rave reviews for Of Human Bondage, but it made not a whiff of difference. She was a few films from her consolation Oscar for Dangerous.

When Davis got films really beneath her she just went full blown Bette with the voice and the mannerisms that impressionists made a living on for decades. In this film she's a shopgirl who lives in Hell's Kitchen on 10th Avenue who happens to aid a 5th Avenue playboy Ian Hunter when he's been out on a toot. The two wind up married. But can they make a go of it and can Bette fit in with the society just five city blocks from her roots.

This was another Depression Era plot, the shopgirl who marries well and tries to make a go of it. Joan Crawford over at MGM was well known for these roles, though the best of them was the gold digging Crystal in The Women. Davis has to deal with Katharine Alexander who Hunter had broken off with and Hunter has Alexander's ex-husband Colin Clive as a confidante.

Who really scores well is Alison Skipworth who back in the day was a Floradora girl who made a society catch of her own. Skipworth shows Davis the ropes in her own inimitable style.

The Girl From 10th Avenue gets a couple of notches higher rating simply because Davis pushes it up.

If you want to see Bette Davis in one of her earlier pictures this is a must-see film. As far as the film itself, it is one of the most boring and average scripts and it is very formulaic code material. There is nothing new and interesting about the story. Standard soap opera. It is predictable, boring and pretty much a waste of time. But for a true Better Davis fan, this deserves watching. Otherwise this is about as bad as it gets.

Bette Davis was 27 when she made "The Girl from Tenth Avenue" in 1935. She's very slim and pretty, and as someone points out on this site, she looks more realistic than Joan Crawford did in these roles because Warners was less concerned with glamor. Davis did some roles in the early days where she was glamored up, such as "The Man Who Played God" and "Fashions of 1934" where she looks very pretty. Even in black and white, those huge blue eyes of hers really pop. When I saw her in person when she toured with John Springer, who interviewed her on stage, that's the first thing you noticed. That and that she looked so much better than she did in most of her roles.

"The Girl from Tenth Avenue" is about shopgirl, Miriam, who takes pity on society drunk Geoff (Ian Hunter) whose ex-girlfriend Valentine (Katharine Alexander) has just married someone else. Miriam marries him, and the two are happy, and he's sober, until Valentine tosses her husband (Colin Clive) out. Then she tears after Geoff. Since Miriam is from a different social class and self-conscious about it, she feels threatened.

Predictable class-conscious drama with nice performances. This is early Davis, before Warner Brothers realized that she was a forceful actress. It would be a couple of years yet before she hit her stride. Alison Skipworth provides the comedy as Mrs. Martin, who tries to counsel Miriam through her troubles.

Primarily for Davis fans.

Bette Davis is a poor working girl who is about to lose her job and is on her lunch hour. While watching outside a church where a high society wedding is taking place, she stands next to a drunk man who is muttering as the preacher administers the vows. Davis realizes that he is creating a disturbance and gets him to leave with her and the go to a nearby place where she can get a sandwich and he can drink.

Thus starts the relationship that eventually leads to them ending up married. He was driven to drink by the girl at the church who was getting married, because even though she loved him, she was marrying a richer man.

Davis sobers him up and gets him back to his position as a society lawyer in a top firm. All the while telling him that if he wants out, he just has to say so.

Many trials and tribulations ensue before he realizes he does indeed love his wife who he married on a drunken impulse.

The 1935 "ladies who did lunch" got their monies worth from Davis, Ian Hunter, Alison Skipworth, Phillip Reed and John Eldredge, and a top production.

Go back in time to the depression years, the downtown movie palaces with double features, and ladies in their suits, gloves and hats, who went to town once a week for the family shopping and then went to see their favorite stars. This film is one they would have seen - and loved. 9/10

Katherine Alexander throws over wealthy Ian Hunter to marry richer Colin Clive, so Hunter goes on a pub crawl. Poor but honest Bette Davis goes on the toot with him to see how the better half drink and winds up married to him. She offers him back the ring and the marriage contract, but they decide to keep it going until he's done with her. After nearly a year, with her studying how the upper crust behave under the tutelage of ex-Floradora girl Alison Skipworth, Miss Alexander pushes her husband out and goes after Hunter.... and Miss Davis retaliates.

It's the sort of foolish role that Warner Brothers put Miss Davis in, which she handles in a straightforward and honest manner. Interestingly, two movies later, she would win an Oscar under the same director, Alfred Green.

The script obviously had something to say about the way men and men use each other, but that's lost in the final cut. Certainly, the cavalier manner in which everyone treats manner is a bit of a surprise under the Code.

Ian Hunter was one of those large, good-looking, competent actors, best remembered by playing Richard the Lion-heart and the only one of Jessie Matthews' leading men who didn't seem afraid of women. Born in 1900, he appeared in about ten silent films, played some leads in British films, then moved to the United States for a long stretch. He made his last movies in Italy in 1963 and died a dozen years later.