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Stage Mother
Stage Mother
	1933 Lobby Card
Directed by	Charles Brabin
Screenplay by	John Meehan; Bradford Ropes
Based on	Stage Mother (1933 novel); by Bradford Ropes
Produced by	Hunt Stromberg
Starring	Alice Brady ; Maureen O'Sullivan
Cinematography	George J. Folsey
Edited by	Frank E. Hull
Music by	Arthur Freed ; Nacio Herb Brown ; Fred Fisher
Production; company	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ; Loew's
Release date	September 29, 1933;
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Stage Mother is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film directed by Charles Brabin and starring Alice Brady and Maureen O'Sullivan. The film is about a frustrated vaudeville performer who pushes her daughter into becoming a star dancer; selfishness, deceit and blackmail drive mother and daughter apart until a reconciliation at the end of the film. The screenplay was written by John Meehan and Bradford Ropes, based on the 1933 novel of the same name by Ropes.

Plot

Four years after her vaudevillian husband's death, Kitty Lorraine, a frustrated former performer, marries comic Ralph Martin and returns to the stage, leaving behind her four-year-old daughter Shirley with her former in-laws. Fed up after ten years of Ralph's drinking, Kitty divorces him and sends for her now 14-year-old daughter. Two years of training allows Shirley to land a featured role in a touring music revue. Upon Shirley's return to New York City, Kitty blackmails the revue's manager into breaking Shirley's contract so she can take the starring role in a Broadway revue.

During tryouts in Boston, Shirley returns to her family home and meets Warren Foster, an artist now living there. She takes advantage of her mother's sudden illness to continue seeing Warren, eventually staying the night with him. When Kitty intercepts a love letter from Warren to Shirley, she blackmails Warren's parents for $10,000. Warren angrily denounces Shirley.

Shirley next takes up with Al Dexter, a candidate for mayor. When his political operatives get wind of the relationship they pay Kitty $25,000 to sail with Shirley to Europe. On board ship, Shirley meets Lord Reggie Aylesworth. Worried that the class-conscious Reggie will abandon her, Shirley denies that Kitty is her mother, claiming she is merely a stage mother. Reggie proposes and Shirley accepts, blithely informing Kitty both of the lie and that she will not be welcomed in her new home. A contrite Kitty hands over another intercepted love letter from Warren and gives Shirley her blessing for a happy life.^[1]

Cast

Alice Brady as Katherine 'Kitty' Lorraine
Maureen O'Sullivan as Shirley Lorraine
Franchot Tone as Warren Foster
Phillips Holmes as Lord Reggie Aylesworth
Ted Healy as Ralph Martin
Russell Hardie as Frederick 'Fred' Lorraine
C. Henry Gordon as Ricco
Alan Edwards as Al Dexter
Ben Alexander as Francis Nolan
Lowden Adams at IMDb as Dexter's Butler
Luis Alberni as Hors D'Oeuvres Waiter
Sam Ash as Mr. Mark Thorne
Hank Bell as Mustached Man With Badge
Margaret Bert as Nurse
Nora Cecil as Miss Gilford - Kitty's Music Store Boss
Elspeth Dudgeon as Music Store Customer
Jay Eaton as Mr. Sterling the Dance Instructor
Bill Elliott as Audience Member / Dexter's Party Guest
John Elliott as Politician
Larry Fine as Music Department customer
Bud Geary as Orderly
Ruth Gillette as Blonde
June Gittelson as Laughing Fat Woman
Harrison Greene as Stage Manager
Lillian Harmer as Fred's Mother
Aggie Herring as The Landlady
Harry Holman as Mr. Rumley
Mary Ann Jackson as Auditioning Child Dancer
Gladden James as Audience Member
Lew Kelly as Jake - Stagehand
Alice Lake as Audience Member
John Larkin as The Porter
Buddy Messinger as Fellow in Third Row
Greta Meyer as Dancing Girl's Mother
Bert Moorhouse as Navy Officer
Edmund Mortimer as Shipboard Extra / Audience Extra
Frank O'Connor as Man at Gangplank
Garry Owen as Jerry - Stagehand
Bradley Page as Tom Banton
Shirley Jean Rickert as Shirley Lorraine as a child
Tom Ricketts as Fred's Father
Henry Roquemore as Messenger
Phillips Smalley as Music Store Manager
Larry Steers as Dexter's Party Guest
Carl Stockdale as Stagehand
Carl Switzer as 'Irish Eyes' singer
Guy Usher as Theater Owner
Leo White as Percy - Audition Manager
Beal Wong as Stage Extra
Tammany Young as Taxi Driver

Production

Image from the original theatrical trailer

Stage Mother was based on the novel of the same name by Bradford Ropes, whose earlier book 42nd Street had been adapted into the successful 1933 film.^[2]

The film includes the songs "Beautiful Girl" and "I'm Dancing on a Rainbow" with words and music by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, and "Any Little Girl, That's a Nice Little Girl, Is the Right Little Girl for Me" with words and music by Fred Fisher.^[3]

Reception

Mordaunt Hall for The New York Times finds many of the film's scenarios "utterly implausible" but praises Brady for making them somewhat believable. He credits Brady's acting and Brabin's direction with making Stage Mother "infinitely more acceptable than most others of its type".^[4]

Film historian Richard Barrios identified Stage Mother as an example of the presentation of "coded" homosexual imagery in early film. The Motion Picture Production Code banned overt portrayals of homosexuality but the Code was laxly enforced until July 1, 1934, when Joseph Breen took over. The character of Mr. Sterling, Shirley's dance instructor, typifies the motion picture homosexual. Posing with hands on hips, Sterling lisps his way through his scene with Kitty and Shirley and even exchanges dialogue with Kitty implying that she will fix him up with other men in the theatre.^[2]