Girl in the Street

Nice little film patterned after "Daddy Long Legs" (not "Pygmalion")in which a street singer (Anna Neagle) bumps into a diplomat (Tullio Carminati) outside a night club. One of her cohorts picks his pocket. When she discovers the theft she goes to a priest and they take the item back to the diplomat. He's charmed by the crude but beautiful Neagle (now working as a maid) and arranges with the priest to send the girl to dancing lessons. She lands a job in a night club and eventually rises to stardom. Her boy friend (Robert Douglas) is an underling to the diplomat and is sent away to Shanghai where he screws up. The diplomat takes the blame and loses his position. Will Neagle give up her career when she finds out about his sacrifice? Will they get together? Neagle is excellent, displaying her singing and dancing talent, especially in the campy "Jingle of the Jungle" number. There's also a nice montage sequence showing her dancing lessons (including ballet). Carminati, who had been in films since 1914, is solid as the diplomat, and Douglas handles his unlikable character well.

Horace Hodges is good as the old priest, and Davina Craig and Joan Kemp-Welch are funny as the house maids.