Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 26-May-05
Spoiler Rating: Low

Stage Door (1937)

As genres go, I'm not especially fond of the behind-the-curtain one that exposes or lampoons the silly, wild, and passionate people who tread the boards for a living. (For one thing, films of this type seem rather bitter and self-conscious.) Yet "Stage Door" is an interesting variation on the theme, offering more than the usual jealousy, infighting, ambition, and artistic hyperbole of its kin. Based on a play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, it focuses on a group of aspiring actresses who live in a boarding house off Broadway, but (as befits a picture from the Great Depression) it illustrates hope for the future as much as anything else.

The title of the movie is inapt, since the bulk of it occurs away from a stage. The residents of the Footlight Club are mostly young women with little or no professional training who view the grinding world of the theater as preferable to what they left behind. (Or more accurately, the grinding world of trying to break into the theater.) Much like the medics in "M*A*S*H," each has cultivated a razor-sharp wit to combat the precariousness of her existence, except the silently desperate Kay (Andrea Leeds). While the house is full of cynical comedians (including Eve Arden and Lucille Ball), none can out-zing the sassy blonde named Jean (Ginger Rogers), who talks tough and fights tougher. Jean's softer side only begins to show after she gets a new roommate (Katharine Hepburn) who looks at life from a different angle.

Hepburn's Terry Randall is (of course) a poor little rich girl who is bucking the past in her own way: she loves her family but wants to accomplish something on her own. With her ermine shawls and encyclopedic knowledge of Shakespeare, she sticks out like a sore thumb at the Footlight Club, especially when she starts questioning her housemates' underdog attitude. But she proves her worth by rescuing Jean from the clutches of a sleazy producer (Adolphe Menjou) and later, á la "Sullivan's Travels," by discovering that understanding her art means understanding human suffering.

"Stage Door" has definite things to say about the theatrical world — as well as the sexual politics and women's opportunities of the '30s — but overall it presents a microcosm where issues of hope and despair are brought to light. Every character makes a notable impression (with Terry stealing the show in her big finale), but the real star is the combined force of their pluck and determination, which speaks to the resilience of dreamers during difficult times.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.