Big Business Girl ** (1931, Loretta Young, Frank Albertson, Ricardo Cortez) – Classic Movie Review 10,268

Joan Blondell and Loretta Young in Big Business Girl (1931).

Producer-director William A Seiter’s 1931 black and white romantic comedy Big Business Girl stars Loretta Young as Claire ‘Mac’ McIntyre, who succeeds in business while helping the swing band singing career of her boyfriend Johnny Saunders (Jack Albertson) and dodging the attentions of her oversexed ad executive boss Robert J Clayton (Ricardo Cortez). Johnny returns from playing in Paris to find Claire canoodling with Clayton.

The 18-year-old Young’s vivacious brightness, along with Joan Blondell’s lively support turn as Pearl, lights up an otherwise fairly dim little Warner Bros filler, though its pre-Code provocative sexuality is appealing.

Robert Lord provides the screen adaptation from the 1930 short story Big Business Girl.

Also in the cast are Frank Darien, Dorothy Christy, Mickey Bennett, Robert Gordon [Bobby Gordon], Oscar Apfel, Judith Barrett [Nancy Dover], George ‘Gabby’ Hayes, Tom Ricketts, Virginia Sale, Irving Bacon, and Robert Allen.

Big Business Girl by William A Seiter, runs 75 minutes, is made by First National Pictures, released by Warner Bros (1931) (US), is written by Robert Lord, based on the story by Patricia Reilly and H N Swanson, is shot in black and white by Sol Polito, is produced by William A Seiter, is scored by Leo F Forbstein (conductor) and Herbert Taylor (composer: stock music), with Art Direction by Jack Okey.

The Library of Congress preserves a print.

The film was released by MGM/UA Home Video on VHS as part of its Forbidden Hollywood series.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,268

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