Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Donald Seymour
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
jacobs-greenwood
This is a fairly engaging story about a rich playboy and his troubled life, in part due to his own drinking. Beautiful Helen (Jean Muir) and "grease monkey" Kate (Laraine Day) are sisters that "love" the same man, Robert Cummings (the playboy). Billie Burke plays their mother.When Kate subs for Helen at a party to keep up appearances, Cummings falls for her only to be infatuated once again with Helen on the next social occasion. After that outing, however, Cummings gets drunk. Helen won't ride with him, so he follows her in his car. When he stops and passes out, she drives and accidentally kills an old man on a bike. She freaks out and flees the scene on foot, leaving him to take the rap for hit-and-run murder. Though Kate discovers her deception, he is unbelievably compelled to plead guilty anyway and is sentenced to 5 years.However, Kate won't let Helen forget her crime, which drives Helen, into an unwanted marriage with a "hanger on" who's about to depart on a 6 month trip, to escape. Cummings provides for the dead man's family such that, with Kate's help, they write the Governor requesting a pardon. When it is granted, Helen is there to meet him when he's released. Cummings tells her the truth about herself, says his love is for Kate, and the film ends with him proposing to Kate in the back of a vegetable truck!There is some less than stellar acting which includes Laraine Day's lips moving when she confronts Jean Muir's character about evidence, which implicates her in the accident, that she had hidden. Arthur O'Connell appears uncredited.
kidboots
....and she really was beautiful. During the thirties she hadn't really got the glamour treatment, John Springer said "the studio worked her like a road company Lillian Gish". She was at her best portraying naive, idealistic young women ("Dr. Monica") or awkward adolescents ("Desirable") with much sincerity and when she did have a glamorous role (as Helen, the one who was beautiful) she rose to the occasion as well. Like Josephine Hutchinson she was at the wrong studio, anywhere else she may have been thought of as another Katherine Hepburn but Warners threw her into everything.When Helen Lattimer (Muir), the beautiful one, realises that Ridley Crane (Robert Cummings) millionaire man about town will not be at the party that night she pleads sick and tomboy sister Kate (Laraine Day) has to go in her place. But surprise!! surprise!! Ridley is there and is very taken with Kate and her freshness and charm - as she says "I'm not witty, can't wisecrack and can't flirt"!!! They share a mutual love of cars and their workings!!!Helen gets her act together enough to mesmerize Ridley with her beauty next time they meet which is the next night. Ridley gets drunk and while Helen is at the wheel she kills a cyclist. Frightened she runs home and it is very easy to convince everyone that Ridley was driving as there was a witnessed scene outside the club and the fact that the town is still talking about Ridley's scandalous hit and run which happened the year before. Only Kate has her doubts - Helen's dirty gloves have been mysteriously scrubbed clean and she also digs up a parcel Helen has buried to find it is Helen's heel-less shoe - a big clue to determining Ridley's innocence. Things aren't plain sailing though, rushing to her uncle with evidence, Helen then refutes Kate, saying she was in the car but when Ridley ran over the man she ran off, screaming. Her lies are so convincing that everyone sides with her against Kate!!!Being an MGM B means at any other studio the movie would have been promoted as an A - it's production, sets, direction and cast can't be faulted. Laraine Day was good as the determined Kate but even at this early stage of her career she had already appeared in two Dr. Kildare movies and the dye was cast. She was so popular as Nurse Molly Lamont that MGM didn't really consider her for anything else. When she was cast against type as the smiling psychopath in "The Locket", in my opinion she was not convincing.
crispy_comments
Apparently a B movie ...B must stand for Better acting and a Better message than we get in big budget "A" pictures today. Modern-day movies aimed at young women, surely aren't designed to encourage depth of character over shallow self-serving behavior... or increase the self-esteem of young girls who don't conform to "feminine" standards. (After all, criticizing the fake and flashy, like this movie does, ain't gonna help sell more products that depend on girls *not* being satisfied with their natural attributes or inner beauty.) Laraine Day is lovable as a mechanically inclined tomboy who "bounds" into rooms and confesses to an inability to flirt. She bonds with Robert Cummings due to similar interests, a shared sense of humour, and her honesty, loyalty and good friendship, which he gradually comes to value over the superficial "charms" of her selfish glamour-girl sister (who only brings out his own selfish, reckless playboy tendencies).Although Laraine is outwardly beautiful as well, it's refreshing to see inner beauty valued more, and the depiction of true friendship leading to the most fulfilling romantic relationship. I wish young girls (and guys) were getting this kind of down-to-earth message today.Maybe if Hollywood returns to making "B" movies again, with modest budgets, and tries to be content with modest profits... what am I saying? Sacrificing the blockbuster mentality to create something sincere on a smaller-scale, would be like expecting a guy to give up the shallow sexpot for a sweet girl who really cares about him. That's crazy talk.Please, somebody invent a time machine already! I belong in 1940.I'd rate this movie higher, but the ending is a bit too abrupt, and perhaps lacked sufficient indication of Robert Cummings' change of heart. (I like the fact that B movies are short & snappy, not bloated & self-indulgent, but this one might've needed more than 70 minutes.) Also found it somewhat unrealistic that a widow and young children would be so unaffected by a sudden death in their family...or be so forgiving of the one who caused it. I mean, I guess it's *nice*, but a little more grieving or bitterness would've been only natural. Maybe a deliberate choice to make this family act lighthearted about their loss, to lessen the impact of the tragedy and make sure *we* forgive those involved in the death - since it's just a plot device anyway, not the real point of the film. Still strange though.
blanche-2
Robert Cummings, Laraine Day and Jean Muir star in "And One Was Beautiful," a 1940 film also starring Billie Burke. At one hour and 15 minutes, this looks to have been a B movie. Cummings is a playboy, Ridley Crane, whom many women desire, including two sisters, Katherine and Helen Latimer (Day and Muir). Katherine is the more earthbound of the two who likes to fix cars, and Helen is the blonde social butterfly with the beautiful gowns. Ridley arrives back in town, and, believing he's not going to be at a party, Helen decides not to attend. Since the party is given by a family friend, their mother (Burke) sends Katherine in a pinned up dress. Ridley is there, and the two connect. But Ridley is into more superficiality, and when he sees Helen at a dinner party, the two pick up where they left off and go to a club. He becomes terribly drunk, and Helen at first refuses to ride in his car because he won't let her drive. After walking awhile and breaking the heel of her shoe, she gets into Ridley's car when he drives by. He passes out, and she takes over the wheel, accidentally hitting and killing a bicyclist.Ridley can't remember anything, so Helen lets him take the blame for the death. The heel of a woman's shoe is found in the car, and Katherine sees her sister bury her shoes - plus, something in Helen's manner makes her realize that Helen isn't telling the truth. Ridley is convicted and goes to prison, and Helen marries a man she doesn't love and leaves for South America.This is a wonderful film, even though at the time, this wasn't an A-list cast. Cummings is playing a part that Robert Taylor would have played (it's an MGM film) - he's handsome and very amiable, even if he doesn't have the dazzling looks of someone like Taylor. Laraine Day is a favorite actress of mine, someone MGM loaned out constantly because they didn't know what to do with her. Why, I wonder - a wonderful actress with a great face and voice, she livened up many a film. This one is no different. Her Katherine is determined, sympathetic and totally lovely. Jean Muir is a lousy actress.So who was the beautiful one? We all know even if MGM didn't.Highly recommended little gem.
