Girls' School

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Movie
Original title Girls' School
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1938
length 73 minutes
Rod
Director John Brahm
script Tess Slesinger
Richard Sherman
production Wallace MacDonald
Columbia Pictures
music Morris Stoloff
Gregory Stone
camera Franz Planner
cut Otto Meyer
occupation

Girls' School is an American movie from 1938. Directed by John Brahm play Anne Shirley , Nan Gray and Ralph Bellamy , the lead roles. The script is based on Tess Slesinger's novella The Answer in the Magnolias , published in New York in 1935 .

action

In the exclusive girls' boarding school Magnolia Hall, Linda Simpson, a wealthy and popular girl, is watched by scholarship holder Natalie Freeman from her class as she sneaks out of her room after curfew and only returns at dawn. Linda confides in her roommate Betty Fleet that she has fallen in love with the writer Edgar and is planning to run away with him. Due to various circumstances, the teachers Miss Laurel and Miss Armstrong hear about this and Linda's parents are notified. When Natalie learns that they are separated, she checks Linda's father at the school entrance and asks him to wait for Linda's mother so that they can both enter the school together. After the Simpsons donated a substantial sum to a new library , the headmistress, Miss Brewster, who was named “the Duchess” by the girls, asks Linda's parents not to go too hard with their daughter in court. The Simpsons even agree to attend Linda's upcoming graduation party together. The night before the prom, Linda receives a special bouquet of flowers from Edgar and a very nice corsage from her father. Without Linda's knowledge, her father gives Natalie an identical item of clothing in the hope that the girls will become friends. When Linda sees Natalie, who is about to put on the corsage, dancing with it, she accuses her classmate of stealing it from her. Natalie then loses her temper and gives Linda a blow. When Miss Brewster asks her to apologize to Linda, she prefers to run away. Sobbing violently, Natalie is found by George McClellan, a boy from her hometown who has long been in love with her, and she asks to marry him.

In the meantime, Linda has realized that she has done Natalie an injustice, because in addition to the bouquet in her room, she also finds the corsage. Linda is now doing everything she can to make up for her mistake and both girls decide to graduate from school and become friends.

Production and Background

Filming for Girls' School began on July 5 and ended on August 6, 1938. The working title of the film was The Romantic Age. According to recent sources, Tess Slesinger's script was based on experiences she had as a teacher at a private school. The film opened in US cinemas in 1938.

Anne Shirley was a very successful child actress. She made her first film in 1922 at the age of four under the name Dawn O'Day (Dawn, Dawn). When she took on the role of Anne Shirley in the film adaptation of the well-known youth book Anne on Green Gables in 1934 , she called herself Anne Shirley from then on. She was only 20 years old when filming Girls' School , but already married to John Payne . Nan Grau, the actress who played Linda Simpson, was just 20 years old and married jockey Jack Westrope during the production period. Margaret Tallichet, who played Gwennie, was 24 years old and married to director William Wyler . Noah Beery Jr., who plays George McClellan, later became known beyond the United States as the father of the detective Rockford played by James Garner - a call is enough .

criticism

Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times asks whether nice girls actually sit on a hockey field all night with the scent of magnolias and are satisfied with the poetry in the air? Nugent concludes that this is a terrible thought, but also kind of personable. The critic praises the fact that the film contains beautiful images with a lot of tenderness and understanding and that a lively group of young people act movingly. Brahm and his writers put the scenes together well and depicting such trifles as preparations for the prom, whispering secrets, and fluttering alumni upon the arrival of the men created a confidential and sincere picture of a typical girls' school. “At least that's how it seems to someone who was never allowed to visit one.” Anne Shirley deserves special mention in her supervisory role, but also Nan Grau as a romantic on the hockey field and Gloria Holden and Cecil Cunningham as headmasters.

Awards

Morris Stoloff and Gregory Stone received an Oscar nomination for their musical score . However, the Oscar went to Alfred Newman and the film Alexander's Ragtime Band .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Girls' School (1938) Screenplay info at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  2. ↑ Girls' School (1938) Original Print Infos at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  3. ↑ Girls' School Notes at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  4. ↑ Girls' School (1938) Articles at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  5. ^ Frank S. Nugent : Girls' School (1938) In: The New York Times, November 3, 1938 (English). Retrieved January 4, 2014.