AMBITIOUS GIRLS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22430, 17 June 1938, Page 5

AMBITIOUS GIRLS

Conflict of Interests in “Stage Door”

In “Stage Door.” hailed as one of the most important films of the year, RKO Radio presents three of the best-known stars, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, and Adolphe Menjou. It is a drama of the ordeals of girls in search of a career.. “Stage Door” begins today at the Mayfair. As the title implies, “Stage Door” has a theatrical atmosphere. It blends in its vivid dramatic fabric the hopes and dreams of a score of stage-struck girls, eager, ambitious, confident that they will succeed in opening the portals to fame and fortune. Until that day arrives, they live at a theatrical boarding house, whose landlady is herself a former actress, and in this setting much of the film’s action takes place. Katharine Hepburn is one of these girls, a society debutante determined on a stage career, in spite of the opposition of her wealthy family. Her room-mate is Ginger Rogers, a carefree

night-club entertainer who yearns to go into musical comedy. With them are dozens of others, would-be actresses. hopeful dancers, aspiring pianists, models, an oddly-assorted group from every station in life, but all fired with the one desire of winning footlight fame. Filled with the changing lives of its various characters and offering a "be-hind-the-scenes” story that has never been told before. “Stage Door” weaves a pattern of heartbreak and triumph through its drama. Success for one girl means disappointment for another, and this leads to tragedy, in the case of Andrea Leeds. • The film becomes a play within a play when the opening night of a big stage production brings its own complications and upsets the “club” in unexpected fashion. Katharine Hepburn’s conflict with Adolphe Menjou, a leading Broadway producer; Ginger Roger’s romance with William Corson,Menjou’s press agent, and vivid crosssections of the careers of the other girls, all offer a wealth of incident and picturesque drama to the story. Gail Patrick, as the gold-digging chorus .girl, Constance Collier as the world-wise old character actress. Lucille Ball. Franklin Pangborn, Pierre Watkin. Samuel S. Hinds. Ann Miller. Frances Gifford, Ralph Forbes, and many others have important roles in the cast. The picture also introduces a number of “new faces” among the score of boarders at the “club.” In addition to the scenes in the boardinghouse. a large Broadway theatre and Menjou’s offices and his luxurious apartment are also used as settings for dramatic sequences in the film. Behind the film is the highly successful five-month run of the original Edna Ferber-Gcorge S. Kaufman play on Broadway. Grcgorv La Cava, who made “My Man Godfrey” and “Private Worlds,” directed the picture. Pandro S. Berman. who has supervised the AstaireRogers and Hepburn films, produced it for RKO Radio. One hundred lorgnettes were used recently by players working in a scene for the Universal comedyromance, “The Rage of Paris,” which co-stars Danielle Darricux and Douglas Fairbanks, jun. The aristocratic eye-pieces were needed for a scene representing an engagement party to which Louis Hayward invites _ his fashionable friends to meet Danielle Darrieux and hear the announcement of their approaching marriage. * * ■» Marjorie Weaver has the lead opposite Warner Baxter in “I’d Give a Million.” • * * M-G-M are preparing a story called “One Hundred to One.” It is about the adventures of a 100-dollar bill and its effects on the people who handle it. Leo McCarey, following his success with “The Awful Truth,” has signed a contract with Hal Roach to produce and direct on a profit-sharing basis. * * * Basil Rathbone will play Louis Xl.in “If I Were King.” Ronald Coljnan stars as Francois Villon. British actor C. V. France has also been signed up for a part in the film. * * * Margaret Snllovan will sing for the first lime in “Shopworn Angel,” the picture in which she is appearing with James Stewart for M-G-M. * * * The scene in “The Texans” where Joan Bennett’s face got slashed by an extra’s bayonet is being kept in the film. This was done to enable her to go on working before the scar: was healed. • •' • Bing Crosby is to provide 25 of his own horses for the race-track scenes in “Sing, You Sinners.” One three-year-old will be chosen as the star horse who saves the fortunes of Bing and his brothers.