Synopsis
Gerry Marsh (Eilers) supports her family by working as a hat check girl in a
nightclub. Jessie King (Rogers) works with her. Newspaperman Todd Reese (Owsley)
hangs around the club gathering information for his sleazy gossip column. Gerry is
courted by millionaire's son Buster Collins (Lyon) whose father (Pratt)
disapproves of their relationship. At a party at Buster's home, a parlor game
called Murder
turns shocking when Reese is murdered, and Buster is
arrested. Mr. Collins offers Gerry $10,000 to stay away from his son, and
she withdraws but refuses the money. After the real murderer is revealed, Gerry
and Buster reunite.
Discussion
Risqué elements add some spice and interest to a slow-moving and weakly-plotted drama. The rather confused scenario centers on a common theme: a worthy but poor girl gains love and marriage to a rich, handsome boy. The basic formula is heightened by making the heroine a hat check girl fending off aggressive men and including a murder and her lover's imprisonment. Ginger Rogers' slangy delivery of some suggestive dialogue adds some amusement.
Sally Eilers was a busy actress during the early talkie period. Her career slowed in the late 1930s, and she only made five films between 1940 and 1950. Most of her later films were B-level programmers.
Ben Lyon, who entered films in 1923, was a popular leading man during the silent
and early sound eras.
Dark eyes, sensuous lips, and slicked-back dark hair earned him leading
romantic roles,
according to his obituary in the The New York Times. His film career was
declining in 1936 when Lyon and his wife, Bebe Daniels, visited England and
decided to stay. They hosted the popular radio program Hi Gang and
made several films. During Nazi Germany's bombing campaign against London in
1940-41 they remained in London broadcasting their program and boosting the morale
of Londoners and US servicemen. After the war, Lyon became a casting executive
with 20th Century Fox in London and Hollywood, and is credited with recognizing
the potential of the young Marilyn Monroe.
Monroe Owsley started his career with Midwest stock companies. His experiences included 119 one-night stands of George M. Cohan's comedy The Meanest Man in the World (1920) during which he played most of the male parts. He reached Broadway in 1925, and in 1928 appeared as the drunken brother in the original cast of the Philip Barry's Holiday. He went to Hollywood to repeat the role for the 1930 film version. Owsley's thin, sharp face, deep-set eyes, and receding hairline imparted a shifty appearance that lent itself to roles as shady, unreliable boyfriends or husbands. Typically, the heroine preferred him to the leading man before realizing her mistake. A heart attack killed him at the young age of 36.
TCM Film Festival, 2014
Hat Check Girl was shown in the Discoveries
category,
signifying little-known or forgotten films worth rediscovering, at the 2014 TCM
Classic Film Festival. The guest speakers were Katie Trainor and Anne Morra,
Department of Film, Museum of Modern Art, New York. The TCM presentation was the
first showing of a new print of the film.
Hat Check Girl had been shelved at the time the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced in 1934. Aspects of the film that the Code restricted included bootlegging, temptations of the heroine, risqué undressing, and showing underwear. As Trainor and Morra explained, the film features elements common to Pre-Code films, including bootleg liquor sold in night clubs and offered at dissolute parties, attractive young women pursued by amorous and decadent men, a sexy undressing scene, and witty, suggestive dialogue. At the center of the film is the destitute but morally pure working girl. Hat Check Girl is also notable for showcasing Ginger Rogers' first screen persona, the wisecracking girlfriend of the heroine. Sidney Lanfield directed many films and was active in television, directing episodes of The Addams Family and McHale's Navy.
Other films produced during the brief Pre-Code Hollywood period from 1930-34 (before enforcement of the the Motion Picture Production Code restricting profanity, violence, sexuality and cynical content from films) include The Bachelor Father, Blondie of the Follies, Employee's Entrance, A House Divided, The Kiss Before the Mirror, Ladies They Talk About, Laughter in Hell, The Maltese Falcon, Safe in Hell, She Had to Say Yes and Ten Cents a Dance.
Further Reading