The Florodora Girl *** (1930, Marion Davies, Lawrence Gray, Walter Catlett) – Classic Movie Review 7954

The one-time ‘Queen of the Screen’ Marion Davies stars as New York chorus girl Daisy Dell the Florodora Girl, in the Gay Nineties – the 1890s, that is. Daisy’s married friends encourage her to reject her life of gold digging with a loving millionaire (Walter Catlett) called De Boer, who is a bit of a bore, in favour of true lurve with handsome but poor socialite Jack Vibart (Lawrence Gray), who is a bit of alright.

Director Harry Beaumont’s 1930 MGM movie The Florodora Girl is a lively fun-poking satirical comedy, with romance, drama and songs, and with sparky performances (particularly from the sweet Davies), a jolly script (by Gene Markey, Ralph Spence, Al Boasberg and Robert Hopkins) and a tempting period atmosphere.

The Florodora Girl is partly filmed at Davies’s 118-roomed Santa Monica beach house. It is one of three films Davies starred in with Gray. She gives a masterful performance in one of her better films, but by the early Thirties she had lost her box-office appeal and was on a downward slide.

It features some very welcome and exciting two-tone Technicolor scenes for the songs, especially ‘My Kind of Man’ and ‘Tell Me Pretty Maiden’. The two-strip Technicolor finale, which runs 608 feet, about seven minutes, is rare colour footage of Davies and is now restored in its original two-strip Technicolor for showing on Turner Classic Movies.

Also in the cast are Ilka Chase, Vivien Oakland, Jed Prouty, Louis John Bartels, Sam Hardy, Claud Allister, Nance O’Neil, George Chandler, Jane Keithley, Maude Turner Gordon, Anita Louise, Mary Jane Irving, Leo White and Robert Bolder.

The Florodora Girl [The Gay Nineties] is directed by Harry Beaumont, runs 80 minutes, is made by Cosmopolitan Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, is released by MGM, is written by Gene Markey (story and dialogue), Ralph Spence (additional dialogue), Al Boasberg (additional dialogue) and Robert Hopkins (additional dialogue), is shot in black and white by Oliver T Marsh, produced by Marion Davies, and scored by Herbert Stothart, with art direction by Cedric Gibbons and gowns by Adrian.

Marion Davies performs Tell Me Pretty Maiden (1899, music and lyrics by Leslie Stuart) from the musical Florodora with the other Florodora girls and boys in the finale. Lawrence Gray and chorus perform My Kind of Man (1930, music by Herbert Stothart, lyrics by Clifford Grey and Andy Rice).

The Florodora Girl opened the palatial Art Deco Pantages Theatre at Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood on 4 June 1930. The theatre hosted the annual Academy Award Ceremonies from 1949 to 1959, and continued to be a major venue for roadshow movies until 1977, when it reopened as a theatre and music venue. It had a $10 million restoration and upgrade in 2000.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7954

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