Girls About Town
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Girls About Town |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1931 |
| length | 80 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | George Cukor |
| script | Zoe Akins |
| production | Paramount Pictures |
| camera | Ernest Haller |
| occupation | |
| |
Girls About Town is an American melodrama starring Kay Francis . The film is considered a typical example of the pre-code pictures .
action
Wanda and Marie earn their living entertaining wealthy business people for an evening that their "agent" puts them in touch. For their efforts, they receive a corresponding compensation from the gentlemen, without, however, coming to extremes. When the two women and their companions arrive in front of their apartment, their “mother” is already sitting in the rocking chair by the window and looking for the young women. In reality, it is her maid, Hattie, who hides behind the curtain in a scarf and nightcap. While Marie is enjoying life to the fullest, Wanda is more thoughtful and wants to achieve more than the short-term satisfaction of material desires. One day they meet the elderly Mr. Thomas, who quickly becomes interested in Marie, while Wanda gets to know his business partner, the young Jim Baker. They both quickly fall in love and everything looks fine. In the meantime, Marie manages to keep Mr Thomas at arm's length from her bedroom and at the same time to build a friendship with his wife. However, Wanda has a dark secret: she is still married. Her husband suddenly shows up, blackmailing Jim, who pays the money but breaks up with Wanda. The two friends then sell all of their property to give Jim the money back. After many complications, everyone becomes happy. Wanda and Jim get married and move to the Midwest. Marie has received many expensive gifts from Mr Thomas and decides to work on her own account from now on without involving her "agent".
background
Before the Production Code came into force, Hollywood censorship was rather lax. The film studios were also forced by the upheavals of the global economic crisis and the rapidly falling audience numbers to lure the audience back to the cinemas, preferably with sex and violence. While on the one hand gangster films always portrayed brutal murders and shootings, a genre developed parallel to this that portrayed the adventures of young women who earned their living with all their physical exertion. These so-called. Gold diggers (dt .: gold rush inside ) were not simple prostitutes, but rather companions who did not achieve their money on the street, but by more or less extensive entertainment services against payment in their own homes and hotels. Examples were Ladies of Leisure and Ten Cents a Dance with Barbara Stanwyck , Play Girl and She Had to Say Yes with Loretta Young , The Greeks Had a Word for Them with Ina Claire and Madge Evans, and Golddiggers of 1933 with Joan Blondell .
Girls About Town makes it clear in the title which job the young women do and the humorous, if reserved description leaves no doubt about the real profession. George Cukor , who had only made a few films, attributed the role of Marie exactly to his girlfriend Lilyan Tashman , who was previously more involved in the dramatic field. Tashman was considered the best-dressed woman in Hollywood at the time and reportedly spent almost all of her income on her wardrobe. Paramount chief designer Travis Banton designed a new ensemble for Francis and Tashman for practically every scene, in order to get their money's worth especially for female cinema viewers. The rather cautious implementation of the censorship regulations is also noticeable in a few scenes. Wanda and Marie share a bed and wear see-through, low-cut negligees. In a different shot, Wanda and Jim go on a bathing trip where Wanda wears a very tight swimsuit and Jim wears tight-fitting bathing trunks. Towards the end, when Wanda announces her engagement to Jim, she strips down to her silk underwear in front of Marie and at the same time gives a lecture about how happy she is finally to leave this life behind. The relationship between the two women and their dark-skinned domestic servants, which is characterized by trust and respect, is interesting. The dialogues of Louise Beavers are, unlike usually usual, without any accent and present the character as a thoroughly self-confident woman with her own ideas and ideas.