Oh, it's a good picture, but, well, it is just hairs away from being a great film. Actually, a lot of hairs. They're all small, individual problems, but there are tons of 'em. Just some small changes in the script, ones that wouldn't have been too difficult to make, and it could have been a Hollywood classic.
Ginger Rogers won an Academy Award for Best Actress for playing the title character, a Philadephian of a modest, Irish upbringing. Did she deserve it? I can't be fair in the matter. I'm totally in love with Ginger Rogers. However, in my opinion, this isn't one of her more memorable performances. She's good, to be sure, but I guess that she's not great for a melodramatic role. Basically, she won it because she died her trademark blonde locks red, akin to John Wayne wearing an eye patch in True Grit. Symbolically, that is, an actress who is perceived to play the same part time and time again went to a different genre. I hate to say that, because, as I said, I LOVE Rogers. I just worship her. I think it's horribly unfortunate that audiences, critics, and even actors themselves cannot accept comedic talent as equal to dramatic talent. I think that a comedic performer has a much, much more difficult job than his or her dramatic counterpart. Drama is easy in comparison. And who besides Ginger Rogers could dance like Ginger Rogers? Take a look at the musical actresses of the 1950s, to compare: Leslie Caron, Debbie Reynolds, Cyd Charisse. All great. I'd never say anything different. But they're no Ginger Rogers. They all let Gene Kelly do all the work (Jerry the mouse has more to do than they do), whereas Rogers "did everything that [Fred Astaire] did, except backwards and in high heels."
Everyone knows that Rogers was amazing in the RKO musicals of the 1930s. That's where you know Rogers from, and that's the direction from which I arrived at this film. However, I've seen at least one non-musical role that could be helpful here, very much so: Stage Door from 1937. It's about a boarding house for actresses, starring Katherine Hepburn, but there are many other great actresses involved, including Rogers, who is the second most important character in the film. She is enormously quick-witted in that film, sassy and brassy to the extreme, but she also has a lot of choice dramatic scenes in which she is great.
Let's talk about Kitty Foyle now. I love the structure: On the same day, Kitty's confronted by her two suitors, both proposing, Wynn, a Philadephia millionaire, and Mark, a doctor (yes, you read that right: Kitty has to suffer the pulls between a millionaire and a doctor, the poor thing). As she stands around trying to make her decision, she begins debating inwardly (actually, debating with her reflection in the mirror, which is pretty ingenious for the time). The whole film is constructed in flashbacks, a year before Citizen Kane. It also uses a snow globe symbolically, which is now getting spooky, a snow globe with a little girl on a sleigh in it. And it's an RKO film. I must be on to something! Were Welles and Mankiewicz making fun of this?
Onward. The film actually uses symbolism decently, but it can never solidify the abstractions that the symbolism raises satisfactorily. Flowers, a specific type of alcohol, perfume, presidential elections, children. They work metonymically, which means that we're reminded of a previous scene in which, say, that particular type of alcohol is ordered. Sometimes it works, often it doesn't. Maybe when it doesn't, it's because the script (by Dalton Trumbo, but it was also a novel first, which is probably the source of the symbolism) uses it too often.
The film's biggest problem is that it goes overboard with its melodrama too often. Scenes grow silly. Take the scene where Wynn, seeing Kitty for the first time in a long while, hires an orchestra to play until 5 AM so that they can dance alone (and not Astaire and Rogers dance, mind you!). If that weren't silly enough, when he is kicked out of the orchestra hall, he hires the orchestra to come to Kitty's appartment to play there! There's even a scene where Wynn has to argue with the hotel clerk about it, promising him that the orchestra won't wake anybody!
Another scene that should have been great but faltered is one where (SPOILERS) Kitty runs into Wynn's new wife and son (Kitty's own son by him was stillborn after she annulled their marriage). The son, who should be hers, forgets his toy and has to come back. Kitty has a conversation with him that should be enormously touching, but, for God's sake, is that kid a terrible actor! My Lord, he completely craps on the scene.
To make the film a bit harder to take, the rival for her love is despicable. In another cringeworthy scene, Kitty pushes the burglar alarm in the department store where she works instead of the stock call button (seriously, they're RIGHT NEXT to each other; whoever designed the system should be hit with a bat!). In order to avoid getting fired, a friend tells her to pretend to faint, something that I couldn't understand. The doctor who comes to help her is Mark, and he realizes that she is faking it (apparently he can tell why, too). He demands that she go out with him or he'll tell on her. When she refuses, he threatens (joking) that he'll prick her with a syringe if she doesn't agree. Jeeze, and some people have a problem at Fred Astaire's ploys to get Rogers! When he shows up for the date, he keeps her in her apartment, telling her he has no money to take her out. When he reveals that he was lying, the reason is because he wants to make sure his dates aren't gold-diggers. He must have seen Gold-Diggers of 1933, too, where Rogers sings "I'm into Money" with paper coins attached to her costume! Luckily, Mark has enough of what it takes to get along. 7/10.
Ginger Rogers won an Academy Award for Best Actress for playing the title character, a Philadephian of a modest, Irish upbringing. Did she deserve it? I can't be fair in the matter. I'm totally in love with Ginger Rogers. However, in my opinion, this isn't one of her more memorable performances. She's good, to be sure, but I guess that she's not great for a melodramatic role. Basically, she won it because she died her trademark blonde locks red, akin to John Wayne wearing an eye patch in True Grit. Symbolically, that is, an actress who is perceived to play the same part time and time again went to a different genre. I hate to say that, because, as I said, I LOVE Rogers. I just worship her. I think it's horribly unfortunate that audiences, critics, and even actors themselves cannot accept comedic talent as equal to dramatic talent. I think that a comedic performer has a much, much more difficult job than his or her dramatic counterpart. Drama is easy in comparison. And who besides Ginger Rogers could dance like Ginger Rogers? Take a look at the musical actresses of the 1950s, to compare: Leslie Caron, Debbie Reynolds, Cyd Charisse. All great. I'd never say anything different. But they're no Ginger Rogers. They all let Gene Kelly do all the work (Jerry the mouse has more to do than they do), whereas Rogers "did everything that [Fred Astaire] did, except backwards and in high heels."
Everyone knows that Rogers was amazing in the RKO musicals of the 1930s. That's where you know Rogers from, and that's the direction from which I arrived at this film. However, I've seen at least one non-musical role that could be helpful here, very much so: Stage Door from 1937. It's about a boarding house for actresses, starring Katherine Hepburn, but there are many other great actresses involved, including Rogers, who is the second most important character in the film. She is enormously quick-witted in that film, sassy and brassy to the extreme, but she also has a lot of choice dramatic scenes in which she is great.
Let's talk about Kitty Foyle now. I love the structure: On the same day, Kitty's confronted by her two suitors, both proposing, Wynn, a Philadephia millionaire, and Mark, a doctor (yes, you read that right: Kitty has to suffer the pulls between a millionaire and a doctor, the poor thing). As she stands around trying to make her decision, she begins debating inwardly (actually, debating with her reflection in the mirror, which is pretty ingenious for the time). The whole film is constructed in flashbacks, a year before Citizen Kane. It also uses a snow globe symbolically, which is now getting spooky, a snow globe with a little girl on a sleigh in it. And it's an RKO film. I must be on to something! Were Welles and Mankiewicz making fun of this?
Onward. The film actually uses symbolism decently, but it can never solidify the abstractions that the symbolism raises satisfactorily. Flowers, a specific type of alcohol, perfume, presidential elections, children. They work metonymically, which means that we're reminded of a previous scene in which, say, that particular type of alcohol is ordered. Sometimes it works, often it doesn't. Maybe when it doesn't, it's because the script (by Dalton Trumbo, but it was also a novel first, which is probably the source of the symbolism) uses it too often.
The film's biggest problem is that it goes overboard with its melodrama too often. Scenes grow silly. Take the scene where Wynn, seeing Kitty for the first time in a long while, hires an orchestra to play until 5 AM so that they can dance alone (and not Astaire and Rogers dance, mind you!). If that weren't silly enough, when he is kicked out of the orchestra hall, he hires the orchestra to come to Kitty's appartment to play there! There's even a scene where Wynn has to argue with the hotel clerk about it, promising him that the orchestra won't wake anybody!
Another scene that should have been great but faltered is one where (SPOILERS) Kitty runs into Wynn's new wife and son (Kitty's own son by him was stillborn after she annulled their marriage). The son, who should be hers, forgets his toy and has to come back. Kitty has a conversation with him that should be enormously touching, but, for God's sake, is that kid a terrible actor! My Lord, he completely craps on the scene.
To make the film a bit harder to take, the rival for her love is despicable. In another cringeworthy scene, Kitty pushes the burglar alarm in the department store where she works instead of the stock call button (seriously, they're RIGHT NEXT to each other; whoever designed the system should be hit with a bat!). In order to avoid getting fired, a friend tells her to pretend to faint, something that I couldn't understand. The doctor who comes to help her is Mark, and he realizes that she is faking it (apparently he can tell why, too). He demands that she go out with him or he'll tell on her. When she refuses, he threatens (joking) that he'll prick her with a syringe if she doesn't agree. Jeeze, and some people have a problem at Fred Astaire's ploys to get Rogers! When he shows up for the date, he keeps her in her apartment, telling her he has no money to take her out. When he reveals that he was lying, the reason is because he wants to make sure his dates aren't gold-diggers. He must have seen Gold-Diggers of 1933, too, where Rogers sings "I'm into Money" with paper coins attached to her costume! Luckily, Mark has enough of what it takes to get along. 7/10.