MGM. 95 minutes.
US release: 12/14/37 (Westwood, CA); 1/20/38 (NYC). VHS release: 6/24/92.Encyclopedia Entry • Films Main
Mannequin
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MGM. 95 minutes.
US release: 12/14/37 (Westwood, CA); 1/20/38 (NYC). VHS release: 6/24/92.
Cast: Joan Crawford (as "Jessica Cassidy"), Spencer Tracy, Alan Curtis, Ralph Morgan, Mary Phillips, Oscar O'Shea, Elizabeth Risdon, Leo Gorcey.
Credits: Developed from an unpublished story by Katharine Brush. Screenplay: Lawrence Hazard. Producer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Director: Frank Borzage. Camera: George Folsey. Costumes: Adrian. Editor: Frederic Y. Smith.
Awards: 1939 Oscar nomination for Best Music, Original Song: "Always and Always." (Music by Edward Ward; lyrics by Chet Forrest and Bob Wright. Sung by Joan.)
Notes: In production from 9/7/37 to 10/25/37. The only onscreen teaming of Crawford and Tracy; the pair also had a fling during filming.
Frank Nugent in the New York Times (1938):
A glib, implausible, and smartly gowned little drama, as typically Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as Leo himself, Mannequin...restores Miss Joan Crawford to her throne as queen of the working girls....Miss Crawford, let it be said, meets these several dramatic emergencies in her best manner, which, as you know, is tender, strong, heroic, and regal. For a Hester Street alumnus, she has a Park Avenue way about her, not to mention perfect diction and a curious remoteness from the odor of frankfurters and sauerkraut.... We thought at times that the script writers had the roles reversed, that Mr. Tracy should have been the honest working boy, Miss Crawford the plutocrat....
Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune (1938):
Joan Crawford is not particularly happy in the role of the slum princess. Try as she may, she is too tony for Hester Street and too much Miss Crawford for the poor girl who made good.
TV Guide Online:
It's an old rags-to-riches plot and Crawford could never persuade anyone she came from downtrodden Hester Street ... an area that was almost totally Eastern European Jewish and Crawford, as good as she could be, was as Eastern European as Sabu. Complete review.
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Lyrics by Chet Forrest and Bob Wright, music by Edward Ward. 1939 Oscar nominee for Best Music, Original Song.