OVP: Stage Door (1937)

Film: Stage Door (1937)

Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier, Andrea Leeds, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Ann Miller

Director: Gregory La Cava

Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress-Andrea Leeds, Adapted Screenplay)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

The "more than five" window of the Best Picture race for the modern Oscars started in 2009, but it wasn't always like that.  Prior to 1944, the Best Picture race was a rotating number, peaking at one point with as many as 12 nominations for the category.  As a result, like today, you get some films that you wonder if they would've been nominated in a five-wide field or not.  That was one of the thoughts I had while watching Stage Door recently, a movie that features a cavalcade of major actresses, not just of that era but more so of the upcoming era; women like Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, & Ann Miller were all breaking out in a big way with this movie.  I was surprised after watching that the film had also been nominated for Best Director, not because it's not well-directed (it is) but because our modern preconceptions of films starring women (and the male-friendly AMPAS) is to assume such a picture can't score both, and thus be one of the "would've made it to five" films (which it appears Stage Door was).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about a group of women who live in a boardinghouse, many of them aspiring actresses who are trying to land their lucky break.  A new girl, Terry (Hepburn) moves into the house, and her worldly attitude & love of Shakespeare make her an object of ridicule, particularly for Jean (Rogers), a wisecracking dancer who is forced to be her roommate.  It turns out that Terry doesn't need to be there-her father is very wealthy, and she's trying to strike out on her own against his wishes.  The two start to patch things up, and Terry befriends the rest of the girls including unlucky-in-love Judy (Ball), sarcastic Eve (Arden), and especially Kay (Leeds), who is desperate for a part in Anthony Powell's (Menjou) new play.  When Terry gets the part instead (initially on the wishes of her father, who is secretly backing the play in hopes of getting his daughter back after it fails), Kay, frustrated from unemployment & starving for her art, kills herself on opening night.  Terry, bereft from the grief, gives a good performance in the play, and becomes a star.  Despite this, she stays on at the boardinghouse, where her new family resides.

The film is unusual, in that it's clearly meant to be a fluffy, light comedy for the first hour, and then it takes a dark detour in its last few minutes.  The death of Kay is a left field twist, something I didn't really expect (I assumed she'd be rushed to a hospital & get the part that she was meant for that instead went to Hepburn's Terry).  It feels like a cheat to me, and one that kind of leaves a bitter taste in the movie, as it totally upends all of the fast-talking girls, and it feels like it's trying to teach the actresses a lesson that they didn't really deserve-they're just young women trying their best (and Terry's greatest sin was *GASP* being ambitious).  The death of Kay makes the film too off, and while it's still a good movie, it disappears some of the best attributes that made you fall in love with it in the first hour.

The film won four nominations, and three of them I don't have a problem with.  Like I said, this is a good movie, a great one in parts, but it's too sporadic & spastic in the way it handles the genre shift, and so it's simply a good movie.  The direction & writing is in a similar situation-good in both its comedic & dramatic shifts, but it can't combine the two.  Leeds, though, isn't the right fit.  Yes, her character is tragic, but that's all she is-there's no depth here.  It's hard to imagine someone looking at this performance and thinking "best in cast."  Obviously Ginger Rogers & Kate Hepburn aren't supporting parts, but they're both terrific.  Rogers is delicious, some of the best I've seen from her (Rogers was always better in comedy than in drama), and Hepburn is glorious, especially when she has to perform right after Kay's suicide.  If I had to pick a supporting player to honor from the movie, I might go with Eve Arden (though Lucille Ball is good in the role that put her on the map as a character player)-she's quintessential Arden (there's nothing to her Eve), but she (and her cat) steal every scene they do together.