Little Gloria... Happy at Last

Watching Little Gloria forthe first time what struck me about this film is how the women were totally running the show. Old Commodore Vanderbilt may have made the family fortune from the New York Central Railroad, but by the 20s and 30s the women were certainly running the show.

The only male Vanderbilt is Christopher Plummer playing Reginld Vanderbilt and he's a wastrel just wasting away. In his 40s he marries Lucy Guttridge and the marriage lasts long enough to produce Little Gloria our subject. Plummer dies from the excesses of a partying life Prohibition spirits no doubt helped.

Jennifer Dundas plays Little Gloria the heir to a trust fund set up by her grandfather who wisely knew Plummer would blow it. But when he dies Dundas becomes the center of a custody battle between Guttridge who has a hedonistic lifestyle in Europe and Plummer's sister Angela Lansbury.

This was a good mini-series which even had an appearance by Bette Davis playing Plummer and Lansbury's mother the Vanderbilt grand dame. But the appearances I liked were that of Maureen Stapleton the nurse who poisoned Little Gloria's mind against her mom and Glynis Johns who was Guttridge's mother and quite the character herself.

All this was entertainment fodder for the Depression masses. Little Gloria certainly captures the mood of the times.