Petticoat Larceny

This short film (at 61 minutes) is a typical "B" feature of the early 1940's. It stars contract players from RKO, featuring Joan Carroll as "Joan Mitchell," child radio star, who lives with her older relative, "Pat," played by Ruth Warrick, whose career languished from her debut as Emily Kane in 1941's "Citizen Kane" to her spectacular run on TV's "All My Children," 1970-2005. Between those two high points, Ruth's career consisted largely of female leads in films like this one and supporting cast roles from 1941 to 1970. Talk about patience! As for Joan Carroll, her role as "Agnes" in "Meet Me In St. Louis" was probably the high point of her work, and as "Patsy" in "The Bells of St. Mary's," where she does a tiny star turn with Ingrid Bergman, deliberately flunking her exams so that she can stay at the school because she wants, she thinks, to be a nun. Joan retired at 23, in 1956.

Joan is the real star here--she's a radio personality with her own continuing series that is supposed to be about the "underworld." Dissatisfied with the way the underworld characters are being played, she runs away to get some real experience and improve the show's dialogue. She finds refuge with three small-time grifters, "Pinky," "Stogie," and "Jitters," played by three of those wonderful "types" with which movies of the thirties and forties abound. The cast also features Paul Guilfoyle playing his typical small- time tough-guy "banty" character. Of course, there's a lot of running around and close brushes with the "real" bad guys, but in the end, everybody lives happily ever after: "Pinky," "Stogie," and "Jitters" become regulars on "Joan's" radio show.

When I was a kid in St. Louis, there was an after-school movie called "The Early Show" on a local TV station--that bridged the gap between the soaps and the kid show before the news. This is the type of fare that one would generally find on "The Early Show," and unfortunately today these "B's" are rarely seen today. I think they'd be a refreshing change of pace. They're unpretentious and kind of sweet: the bread and butter of the old studios.