Primrose Path (1940)
Country: US
Technical: bw 93m
Director: Gregory La Cava
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Henry Travers, Marjorie Rambeau, Miles Mander
Synopsis:
Her mother and grandmother having supplemented their income through prostitution, her father a drunk, Ellie May affects a tomboy mien and tries to keep the household together. When she does meet a happy-go-lucky burger flipper, she sets her cap at him while keeping her family background to herself.
Review:
An ungainly RKO romantic melodrama with comic elements: clearly something of a vanity project for La Cava, who co-wrote and produced, it might have worked as a straight comedy under the guiding hand of Preston Sturges, but is unable to reconcile its competing tones and settings. Not that it isn't watchable in its parts, particularly the scenes with Travers, but as a discourse of realism the diner on the strip and mansion on the hill seem worlds apart, and the strand concerning Manders' errant paterfamilias goes unresolved, leaving the ending hovering precariously between comedy and tragedy.
Country: US
Technical: bw 93m
Director: Gregory La Cava
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Henry Travers, Marjorie Rambeau, Miles Mander
Synopsis:
Her mother and grandmother having supplemented their income through prostitution, her father a drunk, Ellie May affects a tomboy mien and tries to keep the household together. When she does meet a happy-go-lucky burger flipper, she sets her cap at him while keeping her family background to herself.
Review:
An ungainly RKO romantic melodrama with comic elements: clearly something of a vanity project for La Cava, who co-wrote and produced, it might have worked as a straight comedy under the guiding hand of Preston Sturges, but is unable to reconcile its competing tones and settings. Not that it isn't watchable in its parts, particularly the scenes with Travers, but as a discourse of realism the diner on the strip and mansion on the hill seem worlds apart, and the strand concerning Manders' errant paterfamilias goes unresolved, leaving the ending hovering precariously between comedy and tragedy.
Country: US
Technical: bw 93m
Director: Gregory La Cava
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Henry Travers, Marjorie Rambeau, Miles Mander
Synopsis:
Her mother and grandmother having supplemented their income through prostitution, her father a drunk, Ellie May affects a tomboy mien and tries to keep the household together. When she does meet a happy-go-lucky burger flipper, she sets her cap at him while keeping her family background to herself.
Review:
An ungainly RKO romantic melodrama with comic elements: clearly something of a vanity project for La Cava, who co-wrote and produced, it might have worked as a straight comedy under the guiding hand of Preston Sturges, but is unable to reconcile its competing tones and settings. Not that it isn't watchable in its parts, particularly the scenes with Travers, but as a discourse of realism the diner on the strip and mansion on the hill seem worlds apart, and the strand concerning Manders' errant paterfamilias goes unresolved, leaving the ending hovering precariously between comedy and tragedy.