Kitty Foyle (1940)

Directed by Sam Wood. Starring Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig, Ernest Cossart, Eduardo Ciannelli, Odette Myrtil, Gladys Cooper, Walter Kingsford.

Title working girl (Rogers) must choose between her wealthy but married boss (Morgan) and a poor public-health doctor (Craig) in this class-conscious yet hackneyed Cinderella story. Rogers won the Academy Award here for a serious role instead of one of her frivolous larks, but the glass slipper (or sensible shoe) doesn’t fit; both of her romantic options are handsome bores. Director Wood tries to enliven the moth-eaten material, but for every instance that it kinda works (a “mirror conversation” with Kitty’s conscience), a few other awkward tricks fall flat (the filmstrip-esque opening montage, snow globe scene transitions, etc.). Better remembered in the decades since for its woman-in-the-workplace fashion breakthrough than its (melo)dramatic qualities. Written by Dalton Trumbo and Donald Ogden Stewart, a “tamed” treatment of the same-named Christopher Morley book.

39/100