Shopworn *** (1932, Barbara Stanwyck, Regis Toomey, Zasu Pitts, Clara Blandick) – Classic Movie Review 8449

Director Nick [Nicholas] Grinde’s 1932 drama Shopworn is a typical early Thirties pre-Code Barbara Stanwyck vehicle, both fiery and lusty, in which she plays Kitty Lane, a young, poor, struggling waitress driven to a Reformatory by the stuffy wealthy relatives of her upper-class college student boyfriend David Livingston (Regis Toomey).

His mother Mrs Livingston (Clara Blandick) has her framed and she is sent to a prison work-farm for three months. But, on her release, Kitty believes that success is the best revenge and fights her way to the top as a singing star and finds both the class and the stardom she seeks in show business.

Running just 72 minutes, the Columbia Pictures movie is short and sassy, with Stanwyck better than the enjoyable but familiar shopworn material.

Also in the cast are Zasu Pitts, Lucien Littlefield, LeRoy Mason [Robert Alden], Oscar Apfel, Maude Turner Gordon, Albert Conti, James Durkin, Wallis Clark, Hal Price, Harry Todd, Tom London, John Elliott, Wallis Clark, Charles A Browne, Sidney Bracey, Selmer Jackson, Bess Flowers, Martha Mattox and Edwin Maxwell (who is in studio lists as Bierbauer but is not identifiable in the movie, a sign of studio tampering).

Shopworn is directed by Nick Grinde, runs 72 minutes, or 66 minutes (re-edited), is made and released by Columbia Pictures, is written by Jo Swerling (dialogue), Robert Riskin (dialogue) and Sarah Y Mason (story), is shot in black and white by Joseph Walker, and is produced by Harry Cohn and scored by Mischa Bakaleinikoff, Irving Bibo and Milan Roder (uncredited composers of stock music).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8449

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