 |
 Katharine Hepburn is called "The Great Kate" and she plays Terry Randall, the
daughter of a millionaire who's "trying to make it on her own in show
business."
Terry goes and lives at the "dingy" Footlights Club with other hopefuls and
ends up "antagonizing" her housemates. Terry lands the lead in a play produced
by "philandering Anthony Powell" and her housemates thinks she's only an
amateur. On opening night, she "astonishes everyone" with her performance.
They call it a "star studded" cast and note that Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Ann
Miller, and Lucille Ball are all in it. Hepburn is said to perform with her
"famous grace and wit." 1937, 92 minutes, VHS
When I see a movie like this, I'm hoping to see someone like Mickey Rooney and
maybe Judy Garland show up as a couple of can-do kids that get the neighborhood
delinquents together to raise money for the old church/hospital/brothel before
some evil business guys foreclose on the property. That's the kind of showbiz
movie I enjoy. Stage Door, however is one of those movies about people with big dreams doing anything
they can to make them come true. It's one of those deals where the characters
reek of an embarrassing desperation as they all chase that elusive breakthrough
role that they know they could knock'em all dead with if someone would just
give them the chance. Into their world prances the very rich and somewhat
uppity (can't be too uppity since we're going to have to root for her)
Katharine Hepburn as rich girl Terry Randall. All these wannabes are living in
this rooming house called the Footlights Club. I thought it was really nifty
that the community of down-on-their-luck-actresses-to-be had their own
dormitory devoted to them. Of course, this is just an excuse for the film to
trot out as many stereotypes of struggling actresses as you can imagine.  You get the following makes and models of actresses (presented in no particular
order): Terry's roommate played by Ginger Rogers talks tough and acts like
she's got everything under control, but deep down is just as desperate (maybe
more so) to get a part as the rest. There's Lucille Ball's character, who
cracks wise about everything to ease the pain of being a washout (but we don't
really care, since her character never gets developed beyond a sketch).
There's Kaye Hamilton who had a really great part a year ago and brought down
the house, but hasn't been able to get one since. She's very serious about her
craft and you immediately have her pegged as someone who's going to meet a
tragic end (just like Goose in Top Gun or that one dude played by David Keith in An Officer and a Gentleman). There's also the woman who is kind of an icequeen and knows her way around
the right men in the biz, but still has live at the Footlights Club. There's
even the old washed-up, never-was, hag who runs around trying to coach everyone
and wondering if the director has maybe, an "older" woman in mind for a role.
This is what Terry Randall, rich girl with a dream, walks into. As you might
imagine, everyone doesn't really like Terry or her fur coats and large trunks
full of fancy rich girl clothes. We learn that she is the daughter of a rich
guy and she has decided that she wanted to be an actress so she moved to the
city to reach for the stars. The whole business of her deciding that her dream
was to act reminded me of my dream to play guitar. It was a few Sundays ago
and the morning wrestling show hadn't started yet so I was flipping around the
dial and came upon one of these church shows that tries to be hip and reach the
kids. I was transfixed as this puffy looking loser started playing this awful
god-rock on his guitar and everybody was really getting off on it. I decided
then and there that I was going to play guitar. I checked out the
prices of guitars in the J.C. Penney's catalog and figured I would be playingStairway To Heavan by next weekend. Then I saw the prices on guitars were
something like $300 for one that looked cool and my dream of playing guitar
died right then and there. Maybe I should look into acting or something. Now, since Terry is rich she puts on some airs, but not too bad, because deep
down she's a good gal and wants to be friends with her "fellow" actresses. In
fact, she even gets into a heated conversation with the producer of a play who
refuses to see any of the hopeful actresses. This event seems somewhat
unrealistic since, this guy must have to see someone, because you can't pack a
theatre to watch a play starring no one! Anyway, this confrontation was
caused by Kaye who fainted in the lobby of this guy's office. You see,
she's so dedicated and didn't have any money so she stopped eating in order to
keep pursuing her dream.
Um, how bout getting a real job? Maybe she could eat all the positive notices
she got for that play she was in a whole year ago! Wake up! It is not going to
happen! In any event, there is obviously only one play in town that all these
skanks have to compete for because Ginger Rogers is soon being pursued by the
producer of the play, even though he was already seeing someone else from the
Footlights Club (the Icequeen). This leads to a lot of sharp exchanges between
the residents of the house (you know how women are!) and people give each other
dirty looks and take cheap shots over it, when they're not making snide
comments about Hepburn's character. Doesn't anyone there have a day job? All
these Julia Roberts wannabes should sashay down to Mickey D's and sign up for
some work! This country wasn't built on lazy, out-of-work actresses!  After Terry's been there a bit, she meets with her rich daddy and he tells her
that he's not going to support her anymore and she says that's okay and he asks
if she'll be too proud to come home once she's failed and resume her position
as a rich guy's daughter and she says heck no, I like having lots of money for
doing nothing but being lucky enough to be born into undeserved wealth. So
somehow she ends up with the part in the play that that Player is producing.
You know the guy, he was trying to get in Ginger Rogers' drawers and was
cheating on the Icequeen and making Kaye faint. Raise your hand if he's your
new role model. Oh and when I say that Terry got the part somehow, I mean
that her rich daddy paid the producer a bunch of money to put her in the play.
So Terry gets the part and completely reeks in her acting. She doesn't convey
any emotion since she's rich and you and I both know that rich people are cold,
unfeeling money machines. Everyone at the Footlights Club finds out she got
the part while they are
having a birthday party for Kaye. Too sweet! Of course, Kaye is all sugar and
spice to Terry, because she's one of those ignoramuses that just loves being
trampled on by life. Then she goes upstairs and jumps out a window. No
really, she does! Maybe they should have called this movie Drama Queens.
They lather on the emotion with a putty knife, thicker than the make up Ginger
Rogers has to wear to cover up her homeliness. Everybody's crying and Terry is
saying that she won't go on and she feels bad. Ginger Rogers is in Terry's
face saying she killed poor old Kaye and that she'll be watching Terry perform
and imagining how much better Kaye would've been if she hadn't taken a header
out of the upper deck of the Footlights Club.  As you might have guessed, Terry goes onstage and gives the performance of her
life. Since the part required her to feel kind of miserable, it was really
pretty fortunate that Kaye ate pavement just before show time to give The Great
Kate the proper motivation. Terry hits the nose on the head when she asks if
somebody has to die to create an actress. Uh, yeah, I guess in your case, they
do. Who's it going to be for your next part? In the end, Terry becomes a big
stage star, but remembers her roots by continuing to live in the Footlights
Club. They movie ends as some fresh meat comes through the door to chase the
dream
that made Terry a success and that killed Kaye. The is entertaining in an
soapish kind of way. Since we have all these characters with their pat
problems, we don't have to spend too long on anyone in particular and thus my
ADHD didn't have time to kick in. The movie though has more faults than
anyone who watches it and raves about it (as they usually do) cares to admit.
These people are caricatures, not characters and they have their little
paint-by-number problems and attitudes that are used to define them instead of
developing real personalities. As noted at the beginning of this here review,
you can reduce everyone to a single sentence and tell what their role will be
in the movie, much like the Revenge of the Nerd movies or the Police Academy movies (can you believe that Tacklebury just died?). The other thing wrong
with this movie is that if it's trying to be about chasing your dream and you
gotta believe and all that crap, they have a really warped view of how to
achieve it. The only reason Terry got her big break is because she had rich
parents. It had nothing to do with talent, nothing to do with drive, nothing
to do with anything other than the right people getting their palms greased.
What sort of message is that? Then they hold her up like she's some kind of
success and the thing is she deserves absolutely none of it! They only way
they got a good performance out of her was to kill off a saintly (and quite
deluded) woman! I
would submit though, that this movie is about as close as you can get to a
realistic vision of what it takes to succeed in this country. It's all about
who you know and how much money you can throw around. Don't believe me? Well,
would you believe that a guy could become president when his greatest claims to
fame are that his rich daddy was president, his brother was governor of the
state he stole in the election, and that he used to run the Texas Rangers?
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
|
|
