Career Girl (1944) User Reviews

There's A Broken Light For Every Heart On Broadway

[boblipton · 6/10 · 25 February 2019]

Frances Langford tries to makea hit on Broadway, but it hits back. She moves into a girl's boarding house, filled with other longtime hopefuls. When they find out that she can sing like Frances Langford, they try to help her out, but producers leave during her auditions. Iris Adrian comes up with the brainstorm of incorporating her: $25 a week and free housing and they look to make a killing.

It's an okay PRC musical. Miss Langford sings five songs, and there are occasional bouts of tap-dancing, along with the usual romantic comedy plot. Despite her obvious talent and fresh-faced beauty, Miss Langford never became a movie star. Singing on Bob Hope's radio show, bickering with Don Ameche, selling a lot of records, starring in PRC musicals and appearing occasionally in an A picture as a specialty were the limits. It was a good career, far beyond what most Americans of the era could attain, but the peculiarities of the movie business never gave her the final push over the top to true stardom.

Four Songs and a Tap Dance Does Not a Musical Make

[jayraskin · 5/10 · 2 February 2011]

I enjoyed Francis Langford in "All American Coed," so I was expecting another enjoyable romp here. It wasn't nearly as good.

I appreciate the feminist edge, especially considering the time. Langford has surrounding herself with young and pretty women and the men only play minor roles on the edges. Her choice of family or career was one faced by a lot of women in those days. I think women in the theater audience probably related to her quite well. She has a rather ordinary, but sincere look, unlike the glamorous Hollywood would-be starlets around her.

Unfortunately, the women seem to be there mostly to praise how talented a songstress Langford is, as opposed to their own talentless selves. They really aren't given much else to do. Iris Adrian, an hilarious actress who was in over 100 movies in small roles does some excellent work here, keeping at least her scenes bubbly and light. Ariel Heath, as Sue, stands out. She was quite beautiful. Unfortunately, except for six or seven bit parts, this small supporting role was her movie career.

The problem with the movie is the dilemma. Langford has to decide to try to continue as a poor, often rejected would be singer or marry a millionaire from her home town. This is not much of a problem. Being cynical, I would have suggested marrying the guy and divorcing him after a year and returning to New York with a million in alimony.

The three musical-dance numbers in the movie suggest more of a high school musical spirit than a hit Broadway show. Langford has a good voice, but none of the songs are hit material.

This movie seems strictly for Langford fans and perhaps for those studying low budget films aimed at women from the 40's.

In another time and place?

[SimonJack · 5/10 · 21 July 2012]

"Career Girl" had just the right setup to be a good movie, especially during the war years. An all-girl boarding house of would-be starlets in New York had real potential. The plot was just right, and the two love interests were OK. The script was shaky but the movie still had potential. Then came the time for people to perform and it fell flat. Where was the talent in song and dance? Others commented about this, and the lack of much talent did this film in as a musical. Even Frances Langford's numbers were not up to her usual caliber.

This movie may indeed have been for another time. Look closely at the check Frances receives from the hotel clerk in the opening scene. The letter acknowledged the closing of her account by the Midwest National Bank of Kansas City, KS. She received a check for $110 plus, and the date clearly shown on the check is March 10, 1845. That's right – 1845. Someone had fun with that prop, because the camera stays on the letter and check long enough for a theater audience to see the date clearly. Of course, with DVDs today, we can stop right on a scene and savor little goofs like this.

There's no Biz like PRC Show Biz.

[horn-5 · 12 December 2006]

This break-a-leg-kid version finds Thelma Mason (Linda Brent), Sue Collins (Ariel Heath), Polly (Renee Helms), Glenda Benton (Iris Adrian) and Ann (Lorraine Miller), all boarders with Joan Terry (Frances Langford)at the same professional boarding house. The other girls all come to the conclusion that Joan has the "real goods" and makings of a big star, so they and the landlord, "Pop" Billings (Alec Craig) pool their funds and form "Talent, Inc." to promote Joan's career.

Hey, "Stage Door," it ain't...even if one them does die.

Joan, forgetting her old boy friend in Kansas City, James Blake (Craig Woods), is falling in love with Steve Dexter (Edward Norris) , but James shows up and is determined to talk Joan into forgetting her silly ambitions and return to Kansas City as his wife.

Meanwhile, Glenda reads a script that Sue has written and realizes it is a "grand" vehicle for Joan and, in 1945, "grand" was one notch better than "swell" and it's hard to get any sweller than swell. Glenda convinces two shoestring producers (Charles Judels and Charles Williams) to shoestring-produce the show and they have it pretty well laced-up, but James comes along and buys them out. James, cad that he be, intends to close the show and force Joan to marry him and return to Kansas City. James is not one to lose sight of his goal and has no problem putting his money where his mouth is in order to achieve this goal. But since he is billed fourth in the cast, behind Steve's 2nd-billing, the odds of him pulling this off is even lower than the virtually impossible odds that the NFL's Houston Texans would pick an obscure defensive end first in the NFL draft over the likes of Vince Young or Reggie Bush. But, since they did, maybe James will get Joan back to Kansas City to cook his waffles and iron his shirts.

And, he might have if Sue hadn't met with a fatal accident but, before it became totally fatal, she hung on long enough to disclose that her big show-biz heart was set on making a Broadway star out of Joan.

Anybody who needs to be told the finish of this one just don't know nothing a'tall about Show Business and 1940s cast ordering. Frances Langford and Lorraine Miller---as in Lorraine MILLER---in the cast makes it a keeper, along with being the only Jack Schwartz-production ever made worth watching beyond the opening credits.

PRC...need I say much more?!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 5 August 2018]

Back in the 1940s, PRC was perhaps the worst small studio in Hollywood. Compared to their films, Republic and Monogram seemed like MGM and Fox! So, when I saw this Frances Langford film was from PRC, I pretty much assumed it would second-rate...which it was.

Joan (Langford) has been trying to get discovered for some time. All that has done was deplete her money and her self-image. However, even in the face of rejection after rejection, Joan's friends and fellow struggling artists have faith in her. In fact, when Joan has decided to pack it in and just marry her old boyfriend, these friends jump in and form a corporation to fund her until she is discovered. As for the boyfriend, you soon learn he's a jerk and wants to see her fail! What's next? See the film.

While IMDB says the film is a remake of "Stage Door", I see it more as a reworking of the basic idea and the two films, while similar, are different enough to merit your seeing them both, or, just see the better of the two, "Stage Door". My gripes with the movie were too much singing and some characters who seemed shallow and poorly written. Overall, watchable but not much more.

Stage Door Meets 42nd Street

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 15 September 2012]

While there's no Ginger Rogers here (who appeared in both of those films), there is a dancer who emulates her in one sequence of this PRC musical. It all surrounds a Kansas City singer (Frances Langford) who moves into a hotel for women and gains the support of most of the other residents who spot her talent right off and pool their resources to help her out. She's engaged to a boring businessman in Kansas City but finds herself attracted to the jilted suitor of one of the hotel's snootier residents. Iris Adrian gets to show off both kitten and cat like qualities as the tough broad with the heart of gold who gathers everybody around in Langford's defense but isn't afraid to break a vase over another resident's head. Acting wise, she is the winner in this group, while the lovely Langford is musically brilliant if not a natural actress. Still likable however, it makes sense that she would usually be relegated to guest appearances in musicals rather than starring in them, although she did star in a few.

There's some witty exchanges between the ladies of the hotel, and a nice bit concerning the hotel's owner afraid of his hatchet faced wife, only seen briefly with looks that only Mount Rushmore would love. It is a rare treat to see these "Z" grade musicals from PRC or Monogram that offer a bit higher budgets and are a grade higher than their campy horror films or mainly creaky westerns they were famous for. So this hotel for women is definitely worth an 80 minute visit.

You're fired.

[ptb-8 · 2/10 · 15 December 2006]

Z grade PRC musical with Frances Langford should be more fun and hep than it is. I was sooooo disappointed. Boring scenes in a boardinghouse for girl starlets, some Iris Adrian wisecracks and the unusually handsome Craig Woods all lead us to one of the screen's most awful dance numbers in the final reel. And I really like awful dance numbers....eg: Pee Wee Dupree in ZIS BOOM BAH, or the spectacular opening from GUMNAAM.

Here in CAREER GIRL the final clumsy dance number is only worth seeing for the hilarious costume design: halter tops which are OK but.... white short pants with a black maple leaf patch on the crotch which makes the chorus girls look as though they are nude and are sporting the biggest bush of lower body pubic hair you have ever seen in a step line of high kicking girls. Yippee! Hilarious. Otherwise, a dirge.

Frances Langford deserves better than this

[kidboots · 7/10 · 25 April 2008]

Frances Langford began her film career in 1932 as a brunette songbird - ten years later she was still going strong as a blonde!!! She certainly deserved better than this, even with support from Iris Adrian, who is her usual snappy self.

The radiant Miss Langford plays Joan Terry from Kansas City, who is determined to make good on Broadway. After some harsh words from her soon to be ex fiancé, she takes a room at Barton Hall, a theatrical boarding house, run by "Pops", and where she meets a variety of girls, both nice and nasty.

The film is a showcase for the mellow tones of Miss Langford as she sings her way through several very forgettable songs - "Blue in Love Again", "Someday", "A Dream Came True" and "That's How the Rhumba Began".

The nice girls form "Talent Inc." to help Joan realise her Broadway dream -they get together enough money to pay her rent and give her a weekly allowance. They think that she is the only one of them that has got a chance of "making it". Since, apart from Lorraine Kruegar, you don't see anyone else perform - maybe they are right!!!

She finally gets a chance at a Broadway show ...and the film is over. After the dress rehearsal in fact. She doesn't even get a chance to kiss Edward Norris in the fadeout. Who gets who is worked out between him and her fiancée while she is still singing on stage. Then "The End" flashes on screen.

Lorraine Krueger, who I thought was a real stand-out in "New Faces of 1937" does a pretty good tap routine in homage to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

An Absolute Delight!

[chank46 · 10/10 · 8 March 2009]

PRC...I love the way that logo looks on screen. A group of people without a lot of money putting out movies. It wasn't MGM, it didn't try to be. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. This one works. This is really a showcase for the remarkable talents of Miss Frances Langford. Beautiful to look at, delightful to hear. Forgettable songs? Nothing that Frances Langford sang is forgettable. Oh how I wish she had gotten that big movie that she had hoped for! A lavish MGM musical! Sadly, that never happened. In the hands, or should I say the vocal cords, of Frances Langford these songs are most memorable. One of them was written by Morey Amsterdam, brilliant comedian and mainstay of the Dick Van Dyke show. The plot concerns Joan Terry (Frances Langford) sweet country girl in the big city trying to break into show business and torn between pursuing her dream or returning home to marry her boyfriend. I'll not go any further with the plot, I'm sure you can guess the outcome. What is so wonderful about this movie, aside from the gorgeous singing of Frances, is the tight ensemble. The way the cast interacts with each other raising a rather ordinary story into a comedy/drama you can really get into. OK, the big dance number at the end is not always in sync but who cares when you have Frances Langford to see and listen to. Iris Adrian is her delightful, cynical self sticking her nose into everything. Edward Norris, a sophisticated if naive friend/suitor of Joan Terry. Craig Woods a stuffed shirt of a boyfriend from back home. Excellent cameos by Charles Judels and Charles Williams as eccentric Broadway producers. Ariel Heath as the star struck stage struck aspiring actress and others too numerous to mention. Career Girl is what it is...a delightful 1940's musical that entertains. I guarantee that the voice and beauty of Frances Langford will remain with you after seeing this film and that you will return to see it over and over again.

Excellent little movie

[ashkakaylee · 9/10 · 31 August 2013]

This is a rather underrated little movie that bares more than a passing resemblance to Stage Door.

Despite its lack of truly famous faces, it is beautifully acted by all concerned. Frances Langford, the female lead in this, had a long and highly successful career in the media, especially in radio and later on TV and as a live performer as well as occasional appearances in movies.

She belonged to an age when talent abounded and the competition was pretty fierce, and though not exactly a marquee name in movies, she did have her moments, and definitely deserved to have had a bigger career in movies. This little movie is an excellent vehicle for her. She was a striking beauty and had a fine singing voice. The only weak part of this movie is probably the dance scene at the end. But that aside this movie is well worth watching.

Female Empowerment in a Wartime Chick Flick from 1944

[zardoz-13 · 8/10 · 4 August 2009]

You'd never suspect World War II was raging in the background of when veteran, jack-of-all-genres director Wallace Fox helmed the upbeat Broadway musical "Career Girl." Frances Langford stars as one of many aspiring actresses struggling to make it in the limelight. Hollywood Poverty Row Studio PRC Pictures produced this domestic potboiler about a sympathetic Kansas City native, Joan Terry (Frances Langford of "Hit Parade of 1937"), who yearns for a career on Broadway. Predictable but serviceable hokum, "Career Girl" qualifies as lightweight escapism. At a time when most girls were toiling in military defense plants, our well-coiffed heroine refuses to work while looking for a job. She is a goldbricker. Unfortunately, she doesn't achieve success on her own until her girlfriends come to her rescue Although released in 1944, "Career Girl" takes place during 1943. Initially, when we meet her, Joan is paying off her account at an expensive motel that her agent assured her would yield favorable publicity. Nothing came of this strategy. Meanwhile, her prim, proper, but impatient boyfriend James Blake (Craig Woods of "Destroyer"), runs a coal mine conglomerate back in Kansas City. He demands that Joan come to her senses, cease 'chasing rainbows,' and get herself back home so they can marry. Not only does Joan refuse to let adversity daunt her, but she also refuses to return to K.C. The desk clerk refers her to a theatrical boarding house, Barton's Hall, where fellow Broadway wannabes, including Thelma Mason (Linda Brent), Sue Collins (Ariel Heath), Polly (Renee Helms), Glenda Benton (Iris Adrian) and Ann (Lorraine Miller), live so they can realize their dreams. Joan moves into Barton Hall where she pays $16.00 a week.

Nothing that Joan does attracts any Broadway producers. She dates an influential Wall Street playboy, Steve Dexter (Edward Norris of "Frontier Marshal"), and they dance all over Broadway. Of course, Joan is too lady-like to take advantage of Steve. Although she doesn't find success on her own, but she succeeds because her Barton Hall friends help her out. They believe that Joan stands the best chance of success as any of them. They pitch in together and create a corporation called Talent. Inc., so that they pay for Joan's hotel. Later, Joan reconsiders tossing in the towel and letting her fiancée dictate terms until her friends changes her mind. Everybody ends up helping everybody in spirit of mutual cooperation and Joan's uppity Kansas City fiancée learns that he cannot push Joan around to do what he wants Joan to do. After Joan lands a role in a musical, James buys out the show from the original producer. James plans to close the show, but Joan persuades him to let it open. There is a slightly tragic subplot here than involves another Barton Hall girl taken advantage of by one of her own kind.

"Career Girl" focuses on the theme of female empowerment. "Hitler—Dead or Alive" scenarist Steve Neuman derived his screenplay from an original story by David Silverstein and Stanley Ruah. The cast consists of all the usual characters that you would expect in this chick flick. The protagonist is a naïve but sympathetic woman from Kansas City who came to the Big Apple because she drew rave reviews in her hometown little theater. Joan discovers that her companions at Barton's Hall were told the same thing about their talent. Aside from two arrogant burlesque dancers, the Barton Hall women support each other and their support for Joan pays off. Ultimately, Joan wins in the end with most of her help from her Barton Hall pals and the financial backing of her fiancée who sees that Joan will never marry him. She is a career minded gal. Langford warbles her way through several very okay songs - "Blue in Love Again", "Someday", "A Dream Came True" and "That's How the Rhumba Began." She has the voice, but she's no Judy Garland. Clocking in at a meager 66 minutes, "Career Girl" never unravels.