When I started this challenge, I had a few things in mind that I hoped for – I hoped people would give me stuff I needed to see but hadn’t gotten around to, stuff that I wouldn’t have sought out on my own, stuff I thought I would dislike and end up loving, and stuff I’d never heard of, with a particular hope that I’d get some classic-era stuff I hadn’t heard of, which can be a difficult feat. Well, this week did it, and I’m very glad it did.
Despite having a stellar pedigree – directed by William Wyler, written by Preston Sturges, starring a luminous Margaret Sullavan and a great supporting cast – this film seems to have gone under the radar quite a bit. Sullavan is Luisa Ginglebusher (a Sturges last name if ever I heard one), a girl who’s grown up in an orphanage her whole life, but leaves to take a job as an usherette at a theatre…but all that’s by the by. Once she’s out in the world, it doesn’t take long for her to be surrounded by men. She keeps the advice of orphanage director Beulah Bondi to be careful in her “dealings with the male gender,” but is also led by her admonition to do a good deed every day.
