Maisie Was a Lady

Ann Sothern is perfectly cast as the brassy, smart, and kind-hearted show girl, Maisie Ravier. This film adheres to the familiar path of Maisie slumming in a third-rate venue, trying to scratch out a living while fending off lecherous cads.

We find Maisie working in a carnival as The Headless Woman, her head seemingly detached from her body, as spectators look with wonder. Then Lew Ayres, playing a drunk playboy, staggers in, and begins tickling Maisie's exquisite nylon-clad legs. (Ann Sothern had quite a pair of gams). Maisie tumbles over. The act is ruined. Maisie gets fired.

Feeling guilty, Ayres hires Maisie as a maid, where she imposes order over a rich but neglected family. The cast includes Maureen O'Sullivan, and C. Aubrey Smith, whom I can hear speak all day, with that smooth, actorly, refined voice. Here Smith is playing a well-meaning butler. O'Sullivan plays Ayres's lovelorn sister (a complete 180 from her Tarzan films). And Ayres plays an alcoholic who, thanks to Maisie, sobers up, and falls in love with you know who.

Being a B movie, this lacks the MGM signature gloss. The images hew toward monochromatic. What's interesting about the Maisie character is she's a showgirl with a strict, rather conservative, moral code. But thanks to Ann Sothern's portrayal, in all the Maisie films I've seen, she never comes across as a moralizer.

Ann Sothern is a talented comedienne, and fine dramatic actress (Cry Havoc, A Letter to Three Wives), with a rapid-fire delivery and sexiness to boot. I could picture her going toe to toe with Cary Grant in His Girl Friday. She didn't reach the levels of, say, Carole Lombard, or Claudette Colbert, mostly because Ann starred in B movie screwball comedies. Two good ones are Walking on Air and Smartest Girl in Town, both from 1936, and both co-starring Gene Raymond.