Smartest Girl in Town

Ann Southern enjoys being a model and getting to wear rich clothing, but she hates turning it back in. She decides she's going to marry a rich man. When she's shooting a layout on a yacht, she concludes that Gene Raymond is, like her, a model earning a good $10 a day. He's actually the yacht's owner, a man constantly having to pay women for pursuing them. He decides he's going to win her by the force of his personality.

Raymond is in his rich, handsome guy mode here, and that's not my favorite characterizaton, but Miss Sothern is a delight at her most cynical. Under the direction of Joseph Santley, there are some nice comedy sequences, and the whole thing looks like it was shot on the sets for an Astaire-Rogers movie, and it has the character actors to prove it. Eric Blore is Raymond's manservant, Helen Broderick is Miss Sothern's scornful sister, and Erik Rhodes her fractured-Italian suitor. It's clearly all formula all the time, but the wry tone that everyone takes -- except for Raymond -- makes it fun.

This is one of those film in which the dialogue is the star. It is filled with clever repartee. Not exactly realistic, but this is a comedy, after all. And the cast is up to the challenge, delivering the lines with gusto.

Ann Sothern plays the female lead, Cookie--a model who is weary of poverty and vows to change her luck by marrying a rich man. She is quite charming in this role, though I would prefer that her penciled-on eyebrows did not circle her eyes. I exaggerate, and it is not enough to ruin her beauty. In fact, I think the director missed an opportunity to frame that beauty in a meaningful way. Early in the film, she is sleeping in a deck chair, waiting for a shoot to begin. When she removes the hat that is covering her eyes, it is a glamorous shot reminiscent of other actresses' classic introductory shots, e.g. Grace Kelly in "Rear Window". If this shot of Sothern had been the first in the film, it would have been a memorable scene.

Gene Raymond plays the rich playboy, Richard Smith, out to capture her heart. Eric Blore--seemingly a fixture in every RKO production during this era--plays Richard's valet, Philbean, with the customary Blore bluster.

Helen Broderick plays Cookie's sister and delivers some of the best lines. She is determined to help her sister land a guy with greenbacks galore. But neither sister knows that Richard is rich.

"The Smartest Girl" is lightweight fun and only runs 58 minutes.

Boy meets girl; Boy (Gene Raymond, who sings a song in this one!)devises scheme to spend more time with girl Cookie, Ann Sothern(what movie Wasn't she in, from the 1920ss - 1980s ? It all works out in the end. Clever banter in several scenes, like when Gene tries to get the home address for a model he had just met. Helen Broderick puts him down over & over again with quick zingers. Etta McDaniel (Hattie McDaniel's sister) plays the maid. Eric Blore, the droll butler as always switches places with Gene Raymond, and keeps messing up the Master Plan; Erik Rhodes plays the rich foreigner that massacres the English language, as usual. Fun romp. Look for Alan Curtis, who had leading roles in Mannequin, High Sierra, and the Philo Vance movies of the 1940s.

Despite a charming and capable cast, this movie was really bad.

The story had a fair-to-middling premise, but the final script was just muddled and silly.

The whole things seems to be based on "Hmmmm. We've got to crank out some film to fill some theaters."

Ann Sothern has long been one of my favorites (I guess I have several), and she is delightful to watch and lovely to look at. She is always charming, even downright adorable.

Gene Raymond is a good-looking and talented guy who seems to be little known these days, and I don't understand why.

Unfortunately, the production is slap-dash and fairly senseless and ultimately not a lot of fun. Except to see Ann Sothern.

Ann Sothern plays a model here who, especially in the beginning, is portrayed as quite a spoiled brat, as a viewer you quickly start to dislike her because of her selfish character.

However, Raymond nevertheless falls head over heels in love with her upon their first meeting. While he knows that she is purely after money, it comes across as very naive.

Gradually she becomes more sympathetic and the sharp edges in her character are smoothed away.

The scene in the bathroom is crucial but actually a bit too little to make it really believable.

All in all, somewhat amusing, but the romance is ultimately not very believable.