These Glamour Girls (1939)

[5]

Lew Ayres and Lana Turner headline this fluffy comedy about a dancer (Turner) who is invited to a posh weekend party with a rich boy (Ayres) and his rich friends. The problem is that Ayres was drunk when he invited Turner and already has another date for the weekend. She only learns about this once she arrives at the big event. But instead of leaving, she stays and shows up Ayres, his colleagues, and their insufferably bitchy girlfriends.

These Glamour Girls is one of a million films from the ’30s that are preoccupied with class. A lot of these films haven’t aged well. While it’s great to see Turner become the belle of the ball on her own merits, it’s all too convenient that Ayres’ character only comes back to Turner after he learns his family has lost its fortune in a fraud investigation. A better, more timeless ending, would see Turner confronting Ayres with a line similar to Rhett Butler’s at the end of Gone With the Wind.

Anita Louise stands out as the cattiest of the rich bitches. Marsha Hunt is memorable as a young woman ‘past her prime’ and so desperate to get married, that she’d rather park her car on rail road tracks than attend another party. With Tom Brown, Richard Carlson, Jane Bryan, and Ann Rutherford.