These Glamour Girls (1939)

Director:

S. Sylvan Simon

Writers:

Jane Hall (story)
Jane Hall (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

18 August 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

A drunken college student invites a dance hostess to the big college dance and then forgets he asked her...

Plot Keywords:

Campus | Fraud | Snob | Socialite | Stockbroker

Cast

Lew Ayres	...	Philip S. 'Phil' Griswold III
Lana Turner	...	Jane Thomas
Tom Brown	...	Homer Ten Eyck
Richard Carlson	...	Joe
Jane Bryan	...	Carol Christy
Anita Louise	...	Daphne 'Daph' Graves
Marsha Hunt	...	Betty Ainsbridge
Ann Rutherford	...	Mary Rose Wilston
Mary Beth Hughes	...	Ann Van Reichton
Owen Davis Jr.	...	Greg Smith
Ernest Truex	...	Alumnus of Harvard
Sumner Getchell	...	Blimpy
Peter Lind Hayes	...	Skel Lorimer (as Peter Hayes)
Don Castle	...	Jack
Tom Collins	...	Tommy Torgler

Runtime:

79 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #5524)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Soundtrack:

Loveliness

Lana gets a glimpse of lifestyles of the rich and snooty

How pretty, sexy, and vivacious Lana Turner was, and she's shown to great advantage in "These Glamour Girls," a 1939 film about a weekend of house parties at an upper-class college. Turner plays a Jane, a taxi dancer at the Joy Lane Dance Hall who meets Phil (Lew Ayres), a college student from an old family who's at the Joy Lane slumming with his pals. While drunk, he invites her to the big weekend at Knightsbridge College. When she arrives, he's forgotten who she is and he already has a date. He convinces her to stay anyway, and while having a good time, she gets a glimpse of what the upper class is really like and what's important to them: background, the right schools, social standing, and money. And don't forget the booze.

This is an okay story with some good performances from Turner, Ayres, Richard Carlson, Marsha Hunt, Ann Rutherford, Tom Brown, Jane Bryan, and Anita Louise. Rutherford's with a man who doesn't want her, and Louise is the resident bitch. Bryan is dating Ayres, but it's obvious she's in love with Carlson. Marsha Hunt plays Betty, a 23-year-old still hanging with the college crowd in the hopes of nabbing a man. When she overhears someone say she should get married soon before she misses the boat, she panics. It's themes like this in the '30s-'50s that are hard to stomach, and frankly, it brings down this film. The resolution of the Betty arc is very out of place.

Most of the actors were in their twenties, but Turner was only 18 and Ayres was 30, a little old for a college kid - but he was always a very likable actor. Except for Turner, whose charisma leaps out of the screen, there isn't anything special about "These Glamour Girls."