Kitty Foyle
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Movie Reviews of Kitty Foyle
Movie Review: A bundle of cliches.
Summary: 2 Stars
One puzzles over the celebrity attached to this film. What has it, after all, to offer? Whatever the novel's merits, the screen play is a tired collection of pulpy womens' magazine clichés, already quite played out by 1940.
For Ginger Rogers, her lead as "Kitty" is anything but new turf, (and hardly Oscar worthy) and is in fact, both in dialog and situations a retread of many of her thirties roles. In listening to Kitty, one hears echos of Rogers in the 30s in all those working class melodramas--as hat check girl, manicurist, chorine, carnival vendor etc, --the girl whose hard boiled bon mots conceal an inner decency.
Then there are the other hackneyed ingredients. We have, for example, a tired romantic triangle in which the star has her choice of two stalwart, handsome leading men, Gladys Cooper in the mink collar on the camel back sofa (again), Kitty's father, a Faith and Begora tippling Irishman, (a la Charles Winninger the other flustered shamrock pater in all those Judy Garland vehicles), wisecracking plain Jane roommates who eat sandwiches as they let down Murphy Beds, and a really embarrassingly bad scene in which Kitty "tells off" her high born in laws, that seems drawn of equal parts Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Joan Blondell.
After hearing her "corn beef and cabbage are better than Beef Wellington!" style denunciation, you'll be on the side of the aristocrats.
It doesn't help that a puffy faced Rogers (then only 30) photographs much older, perhaps owing to an unflattering selection of brunette coiffures. Indeed, she looks MUCH better 10 years later, as witness the "Manhatten Downbeat" section of "Barkleys of Broadway" or "Storm Warning" (1951).
At least this film's sets were able to be re-purposed to much greater advantage, particularly by Val Lewton in his "Seventh Victim," (the speakeasy in "Kitty Foyle" receives better exposure as Natalie Cortez' Greenwich Village living room). Just for fun try to see how many other sets and props from "KF" end up in the "Seventh Victim."
But for all that, even some of "Kitty's" own sets are leftovers, notably one first seen in the Lucile Ball vehicle, "Beauty for the Asking."
Strictly for fans of left-over stew or films with unjustifiably high reputations.
Movie Review: The Mystery Goes On
Summary: 2 Stars
I had heard all the hype about this film and Ginger's Oscar, but after several viewings, I still find the film rather flat as an experience, and Ginger's Oscar is still a mystery. I guess it proves the adage about winning one "For women, play plain or ugly (remember Charlize Theron) or play against type"Movie Review: movie reviews crossed: kitty foyle & johnny belinda
Summary: 1 Stars
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential video
After initially rejecting the role as too sentimental, Ginger Rogers found the title character of Kitty Foyle to be an Oscar winner and a career breakthrough. Released in 1940, only a year after her nine-picture partnership with Fred Astaire ended, Kitty Foyle helped establish Rogers as a nonmusical box-office star. The film portrays a white-collar working girl who receives a warm and welcome marriage proposal from Mark (James Craig), a kindly but humble doctor. As soon as she accepts, however, she receives a different proposition, this one from her former love, wealthy socialite Wyn (Dennis Morgan), who plans to flee his life and his wife and asks Kitty to join him and live in unwedded bliss in South America. Kitty then recounts her life in flashback to help her choose which man to love. Rogers gives an appealing performance as the feisty yet vulnerable Kitty, who makes up in moxie what she lacks in social status. Did she really deserve the Best Actress Oscar over Bette Davis in The Letter, Joan Fontaine in Rebecca, Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story, and Martha Scott in Our Town? Well, evidently Rogers had real-life moxie too. --David Horiuchi
Product Description
Known for light comedies and her partnership with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers stepped off the dance floor and into 1940's Oscar spotlight with her Best Actress turn as Kitty, an indomitable working-class girl who endures the rejection of Philadelphia society, makes her own way as a single woman and ultimately chooses between an unmarried arrangement with Main Line scion Wynnewood Strafford VI (Dennis Morgan) or marriage to a struggling physician (James Craig). Rogers' deserved Academy Award confirmed she was more than a dance star - a fact humorously underscored when she returned to the studio and was greeted by staffers and actors in top hats and tails. Jane Wyman won the Best Actress Academy Award for her sensitive portrayal of Belinda, capturing the girl's affecting isolation, awakening desire to learn and ultimate triumph. Directed by Jean Negulesco and co-starring Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford and Agnes Moorehead (all four Oscar nominees* for their fine work), Johnny Belinda (nominated for a total 11 Oscars including Best Picture) blends atmosphere, nuance and high drama into a heartbreaking classic
Movie Review: Sucks to be you, Kitty.......
Summary: 1 Stars
I've heard about this clunker for years, have known about Ginger's Oscar-worthy performance as the title character and expected something pretty decent in the way of film making. One of the one star reviews captures perfectly my feelings, i.e. when is this thing ever going to end? I cannot believe how boring and meaningless a movie this is. It makes me wonder if the book from which it was adapted was just as dull or if they managed, somehow, to excise all the interesting parts when they wrote the script.
No one, and I mean NO ONE of the characters has any depth whatsoever. Kitty and what's his name...Wyn...fall madly in eternal love because they each find the other physically attractive. Is that shallow or what? The doctor dude falls for her because she's not a gold-digger. Wow. That's really delving into the character of someone you want to marry. And he's hardly even in the picture, so to speak, and apparently sees Kitty all of 2-3 times before he sees her clutching some newborn and decides to pop the old question. Drivel, I say.
The weirdest, scariest part is that Kitty knows quite well Wyn has a 5 y.o. child as well as a wife whom he has no problem at all dumping to go live in South America and things it would be swell if Kitty were to tag along. He doesn't care about his wife, child or Kitty's potential life as an unmarried slut. He completely lacks character. She, in turn, actually considers taking him up on his appalling proposal. In fact, the entire movie is really all about her better nature trying to slap some sense into her. I don't know, I just can't do justice in descibing the stupidity of this entirely ridiculous flick.
In reality, people---women and men---make bad decisions all the time, every day. And many movies have been made about human frailty and the consequences of falling in love with trashy people. But generally those movies are a lot more entertaining than is "Kitty Foyle".
I guess G.R. is okay and actually more or less transcends the lousy material she's given to work with. Dennis what's-his'name? He's so lame and corny it's really hard to imagine falling in love with him. This guy's always shallow and ininteresting in whatever movie he's in. Ginger's performance still no reason to waste you time watching this piece of crap.
Movie Review: garbology
Summary: 1 Stars
Main Line, Main Line.... those Main Liners.... You like to look at those Main Liners, don't you Ginger... I mean Kitty? You the suffragette who just got offa the suffragette wagon... the same wagon that was seen rolling by in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle... wait a minute... that was the exact same footage! I guess the makers of this fine movie assembled it out of stock footage. In fact Wynn, the MAIN LINER seems to be assembled out of stock footage of Bill Clinton. Did you know allabout the MAIIINNNE LIIIIINNNEEE???? Seems the whole worl knows about the MAIIIIIIINNNNEEE LIIIIIIINNNNNNEEEEEEE "Philadelphia Aristocracy" See, in Philadelphia, they're old skool, dig. They even got a Queen of Pennsylvania, who sits on a throne and stuff. Played by Margaret Dumont when she's not getting scandalized by Groucho Marx. And I believe there is a duke and duchess of Bakersfield. And just the other day I had tea and crumpets with the Viscount of Compton. Of the Night Train... I mean Wild I... I mean Yeah, he was drinking Ripple back when Redd Foxx was merely the Duke of Cornwall. He was in line to the throne... or was that waiting for the mens room... See, over here in the States we take our aristocracy just as seriously as our Prussian counterparts. We are always to be seen marching around with those spiky helmets on, saluting the statue of Kaiser Bill's moustache.