Shopworn (1932)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Nick Grinde

Writers:

Sarah Y. Mason (story)
Jo Swerling (dialogue) ...

Release Date:

25 March 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

A SUPERB ARTISTE IN HER MOST GLAMOROUS ROLE...Barbara STANWYCK (original print ad - mostly caps)

Plot:

A poor but honest and hardworking waitress from way across the tracks meets and falls in love with a college student from the upper-stuffy class...

Plot Keywords:

Waitress | College Student | Stardom | Male Female Relationship | Showgirl

Cast

Barbara Stanwyck	...	Kitty Lane
Regis Toomey	...	David Livingston
Zasu Pitts	...	Aunt Dot
Lucien Littlefield	...	Fred
Clara Blandick	...	Mrs. Helen Livingston
Robert Alden	...	Toby
Oscar Apfel	...	Judge Forbes
Maude Turner Gordon	...	Mrs. Thorne
Albert Conti	...	Andre Renoir
James Durkin	...	District Attorney (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

72 min | USA:66 min (re-edited version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #4749-R: for re-release) | USA:TV-G (TV rating)

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Edwin Maxwell is in studio records/casting call lists for the role of "Bierbauer," but he did not appear or was not identifiable in the movie. In addition, a modern source lists Joan Standing and Dorothea Wolbert as cast members, but they were not seen in the movie either.

Quotes:

Kitty Lane: [to her Uncle Fred, who runs a greasy spoon] Your thoughts are just like your kitchen ... dirty.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire (1991) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Bridal Chorus (Here Comes the Bride)

has its moments

This fast-moving film features Barbara Stanwyck in her early period when she usually played a tough, lower-class dame with a hot temper who stands fast to her principles. This character is virtually identical to the ones she played in NIGHT NURSE, LADIES THEY TALK ABOUT and BABY FACE. Here she is a waitress who falls in love with a rather bland medical student (Regis Toomey) whose nasty and snobbish mother (an excellent and truly scary Clara Blandick) schemes with a corrupt judge (Oscar Apfel) to separate the young lovers by sending Stanwyck to one of those reformatories that pop up so frequently in films of this era. The ever-fluttery Zasu Pitts is on hand as Stanwyck's aunt - what a comedown from GREED.

In one scene Stanwyck, trying to memorize the dictionary as a means of self improvement, shows her suitor a list of words beginning with the letter "e" which she has written down. He reads them aloud, stops after "ejaculate," looks at her with some curiosity and says that even he would never use such a word. That moment immediately pigeonholes this film as pre-Code. The scene continues artfully with one-word exchanges all starting with the letter "e." Later, while Lucien Littlefeld is conversing about the Stanwyck-Toomey relationship with Oscar Apfel, a couple of lines are very clumsily overdubbed by other actors. Makes one wonder what was actually said. Late in the film there is an imaginative banquet scene in which the camera carefully pans the length of a dining table highlighting the place cards (each a little paper doll inscribed with a guest's name) while the corresponding but off-screen voices converse on the soundtrack; then the camera moves back to reveal the whole table and all of the people we have been listening to. The yard between the diner where Stanwyck works and the house where the owners live is well depicted: tattered laundry hanging on a line, overflowing garbage cans and kittens playing.

The screenwriter Robert Riskin contributes some snappy and witty dialogue. He worked quite frequently with Frank Capra, penning the scripts for IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, MEET JOHN DOE, LADY FOR A DAY and MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, among others. All of these films address the issue of "decency" – what truly constitutes decency? Saying you are decent or actually being decent?