Synopsis
On his birthday, Timothy Borden, Sr. (Connolly), forsaken by his family, sits on a park bench. Also sitting on the bench is poor, jobless, but cheerful and friendly, Mary Grey (Rogers) whom he takes to dinner. He brings her home and when she appears the next morning (after sleeping in the guest room), his family, shaken by her presence, fears the (unspoken) worst.
Borden asks Mary to stay and help him regain the consideration and respect due him from his wife (Teasdale) and children (Holt and Adams). The understanding and intelligent Mary not only helps Borden reform his family, she also advises his daughter (Adams) about the way to win her love, the communism-spouting chauffeur (Ellison), and gains for herself the love of Borden's son Tim (Holt), despite his initial fears about her relationship with his father.
Discussion
This enjoyable comedy has an unusual plot in which a neglected father teams up with a sympathetic young woman to teach his family about gratitude, thoughtfulness, and responsibility. The screenplay goes about as far possible in the Motion Picture Production Code era with suggestiveness, with Borden and Mary encouraging his family’s suspicions that he has moved his mistress into the house. Her presence forces each member of the family to admit personal shortcomings and make improvements.
Ginger Rogers easily handles the role of a sympathetic, resourceful, saucy, and worldly-wise young woman. Released a few months after the very successful Bachelor Mother (1939), the film confirmed Rogers' capabilities as a comedienne and demonstrated her ability to carry a film and draw an audience.
Two accomplished comedians support Rogers. Walter Connolly began his Broadway
career in 1916 and moved into films in 1932. His chubby and mobile face and portly
figure fit nicely with his frequent roles as bluff and blustery, but understanding
and likable, fathers and bosses, as in
It Happened One Night
(1934) and Nothing Sacred (1937). Verree Teasdale, a Broadway veteran
since 1924, specialized in silly society women but also successfully played the
other woman
in romantic dramas. Teasdale made only four films after
Fifth Avenue Girl. In the late 1940s, she and her husband Adolphe
Menjou hosted a syndicated radio program.
Tim Holt, son of actor Jack Holt and star of programmer westerns from 1938 to 1952, periodically had substantial supporting roles in A features, including Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), and John Huston's The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948). His role in Fifth Avenue Girl was an atypical romantic part. Although Holt was eight years younger than Rogers, her youthfulness matched with his sober demeanor and mature features produce an agreeable pairing.
Gregory La Cava began his career making animated comic shorts for the Hearst Corporation from 1916 to 1923. He would go on to direct more than thirty feature films from 1924 to 1947, specializing in comedies examining troubled families, such as Gallant Lady (1933), What Every Woman Knows (1934), She Married Her Boss (1935), and Primrose Path (1940). The reformation of a selfish, inconsiderate family in Fifth Avenue Girl is similar to the central plotline of La Cava's best known film, My Man Godfrey (1937), starring William Powell and Carole Lombard. La Cava directed Ginger Rogers in three films — Stage Door (1937), Fifth Avenue Girl, and Primrose Path — and effectively showcased her personal warmth and nuanced acting. La Cava's career stalled in the early 1940s, and he completed only four films after Fifth Avenue Girl.
Writer Allan Scott had written screenplays for six of Rogers' musicals with Fred Astaire, most notably Carefree (1938), in which he provided Rogers with a fine comic role and advanced her transition from dancer to star comedienne.
Dell Henderson, pioneer director and silent comedian, continued his career acting in uncredited bit parts in Fifth Avenue Girl, appearing as a waiter. Characer actor Franklin Pangborn also appears as the butler Higgins.
TCM Film Festival, 2014
Fifth Avenue Girl was shown as part of the Discoveries
theme
at the 2014 TCM Classic Film Festival. The guest speaker was Cari Beauchamp,
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Film Scholar, and author of numerous
articles and books including
Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early
Hollywood
(1998) and Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years (2009).
Beauchamp discussed the cast and director of Fifth Avenue Girl. At fourteen, Ginger Rogers was won a Charleston dance contest. At eighteen she was in the chorus, and at nineteen she was on Broadway. In 1933, Rogers made ten films and got her name above the title. Her mother, Lela Rogers, worked relentlessly to get her ahead. Lela, a society dame, was a friend of Hedda Hopper, who shared her conservative views. Beauchamp told a story about a lunch that Lela attended for J. Edgar Hoover at which she became convinced that Hoover was her soul mate. Walter Connolly's career began on the stage and moved to film. He produced three-dimensional characters and was in demand as a character actor. Verree Teasdale was a talented comedienne. Director Harry Beaumont said of her that she was the same woman whether playing witless with wealth or witless with a nickel in her pocket and an apple to eat. Gregory La Cava, although talented, was a drinker and did not have a studio contract.
Further Reading