Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Prismark10 A film about struggling actresses in the 1930s living in a boarding house which despite some rapid fire lines looks a bit creaky now.Katherine Hepburn plays Terry, daughter of a wealthy father determined to make it big on her own but not knowing that her father is pulling some strings to get her a role in a new play. Terry is tough and self assured but at odds with the other actresses in the boarding house but willing to fight their corner if needed.Ginger Rogers plays Jean a struggling dancer always at odds with Terry especially when Terry bags a stage role that was coveted by their roommate Kay who is pushed over the edge by this latest setback.The film has a cynical but comedic look at show business, a producer who refuses to see the actresses who come each day to hopefully audition for him and who thinks they should be at home cooking. We have a lecherous casting agent who looks to take advantage of the ladies in exchange for advancing their careers.

Thomas Drufke While watching this film I couldn't help but think about the possibility of having this remade in today's Hollywood. Women's empowerment and lack of quality roles in Hollywood is at an all time high in terms of it being at the center of discussions, so I feel like it's the perfect time. Plus, Stage Door has a bevy of strong female roles and plenty of material that can easily be translated to modern day or just kept in the 30's. Regardless, I would love to see a new rendition.An ensemble cast including Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Andrea Leeds, and Lucille Ball play a bunch of aspiring actresses at a boardinghouse just waiting for the perfect role. Plenty of films have been made about broken dreams in Hollywood, and I think this film does a good job balancing the greatness and the sadness that being an up and coming actress can bring. But I do think that the film does lose focus at times. You never get a sense as to who the story is about. The film's twists and turns constantly change your view on who the central character to the story is. The answer is that it's about all of them, but I would have liked to have seen even more comradery between the girls instead of focusing on the three main leads.If it is eventually remade, I feel as though they will have to update the Anthony Powell character. He comes off really creepy and almost at the point of intentions of rape at some points in the film. That was the one part of the film I thought could have been written better. So in all, I have to like this film because this is the role that got Katharine Hepburn cast in Bringing Up Baby, one of my favorite films of all time. And Stage Door is a really solid film that shows the horrors but also the greatness that Hollywood can present people.+Performances+Timeless+Both sides of Hollywood-Creepy Powell character7.4/10

mmallon4 Stage Door is very much the poverty row version of MGM's The Women. It features only one big box office star, another who had become box office poison and a supporting cast who would later go on to play notable prominent roles in later films (Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, Eve Arden).Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn where the two big rivals at RKO pictures with Rodger's career on the up and Hepburn's career on the down yet you can feel their mutual respect for each other as the film progresses (in the fictional realm at least). Stage Door follows a group of actresses living in a drab theatrical boarding house trying to make it in the world of show business. Right of the bat the movie is emotionally investing as the cast of street smarts constantly spew one liners and witty remarks in an effort to try and deal with their lack of success amidst the depression ridden 30's; the film succeeds in evoking both laughter and sadness simultaneously with its barrage of highly relatable human emotion - The lightning fast dialogue alone makes Stage Door worthy of multiple viewings. Supposedly the filming of Stage Door began without a completed script resulting in much of the film's dialogue being improvised. The interactions between the female cast feels real; the acting present in the movie doesn't feel like acting, almost like I'm getting a voyeuristic insight into these character's lives. Likewise the film even has an early appearance by Jack Carson as an over giddy lumberjack on an arranged date with Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers); always a great screen presence no matter how brief his appearance is. I find Stage Door a one of a kind film; it has a raw quality, one that can't be created intentionally making it a rare treat in many respects. The cast and dialogue is just too good that I really become attached to these characters and almost wish the film could be a bit longer. Katharine Hepburn's Terry Randall is another instance of Hepburn playing the odd one out. I do love Terry Randall, she's the one character in the boarding house of whom clearly comes from an upper class background and she is only one who achieves stage success by landing the lead in a play despite her lack of acting experience. With her go getter attitude Terry is the embodiment of the individual as summed up in one line: "You talk as if the world owed you a living. Maybe if you tried to do something for the theatre, the theatre would do something for you". I get the impression Stage Door purports the idea that one who comes from a lower class background will find it harder to overcome these ties and find success. In one dialogue exchange Terry asks the other women "do you have to just sit around and do nothing about it?" and the character played by Lucille Ball replies "maybe it's in the blood, my grandfather sat around until he was 80". Terry is clearly more dedicated to her craft than the other woman in boarding house, discussing Shakespeare and other aspects of theatrical arts, while the other conformist woman poke fun and shun her for it. This does make me question what they are doing there in the first place; I guess they have just been beaten down by the system that bad. One thing Terry is not however is a snob. She doesn't look down on the girls from a high and mighty position and even makes the effort to learn their slang. When I doubt I will ask myself, what would Terry Randall do?

n_r_koch They should have called this one "Upstaged Door", since what I saw was Ginger Rogers, one of the overlooked comediennes of the 1930s (see "Gold Diggers of 1933"), more or less blowing Katherine Hepburn out of the movie. Calla lilies? She did so despite the fact that the script is written around the "Hepburn" character and gives her the big speech at the end, and that the plebeian "Rogers" is the more cruelly satirized of the two, especially in Act I. Hepburn plays herself, as she did in every role after Alice Adams. Rogers, a teetotaler in real life, plays a mean drunk scene, among other things. She mocks a posh accent. She wears great-looking gowns like she was born in them. She plays the ukulele! La Cava wisely nips the ukulele business in the bud. He doesn't let her sing or dance much, either. (Hepburn doesn't sing or dance at all, even though she's living with two dozen chorines.) The haste with which the film was adapted from the play is obvious in the many "staged" entrances and exits. Everyone gets some snappy lines, but some of the support only get a few things to say. Constance Collier, as the washed-up old actress who carries her notices around in her purse, is the best of them. They are all but uniformly great except for Andrea Leeds. Leeds was a pretty, sensitive girl who didn't like Hollywood much. She was also a mediocre actress. This is evident the instant she has to trade lines with anyone. And she was given an Academy Award nomination for this role! That says something about both Hollywood self-loathing and Hollywood self-congratulation. The subplot built around her character, who is barely introduced, feels jury-rigged and maudlin and just doesn't work at all. The idea appeared to be to add "depth" to a plot that was doing fine without any. This mistake knocks the movie down from a 9 to, say an 8. It's still 10 times funnier than most of what's playing now. Don't miss it!