Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20115 in VHS
• Released on: 1998-02-09
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Black & White, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 91 minutes

Synopsis
This amusing comedy takes a look behind the scenes at a young ladies rooming house where dreams are everything. It has all the ingredients of the perfect comedy, including a heartbreak or two.

Customer Reviews

"The calla lilies are in bloom again..."
"The Philadelphia Story" brought Katharine Hepburn's film career back from the oblivion of being considered "Box Office Poison" by the nation's theater owners, but she was making a string of first-rate pictures right before that classic 1940 film beginning with 1937's "Stage Door." Her next two films were "Bringing Up Baby" and "Holiday," both with Cary Grant, and all four films have Hepburn playing a rich girl. In "Stage Door" she is Terry Randall, a debutante and wannabee actress who comes to New York City to become a Broadway star. She moves into the Footlights Club, where she joins a company of poor, starving young actresses who are all trying to make it in show businesses.

Terry ends up rooming with Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers), an acid-tongued but softhearted dancer. The two trade barbs over everything from Terry's extensive wardrobe to Jean's affair with Anthony Powell (Adolphe Menjou), a Broadway producer who is working his way through an endless procession of young women. His next big production is "Enchanted April," and in order to get funding he is cornered into giving the inexperienced and patently inept Terry the starring role. The part should have gone to Kaye Hamilton (Andrea Leeds), a talented actress at the club who is broke and on the verge of starvation. When Terry gets the part Kaye is crushed.

Based on the play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, the script by Morrie Ryskind and Anthony Veiler retained the basic plot line regarding Terry, Jean, and Kay, while provided some wonderful crackling dialogue amongst the girls (some of which was supposedly based on overhearing the actresses chatting during rehearsals). One of the prime attractions of the film today are the faces that would become familiar in the future, such as Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, and Ann Miller.

The show piece of the film is the play-within-the-play sequences, which was remodeled after a scene in the third act of "The Lake," the infamous Broadway play were Dorothy Parker got off the famous shot "Katharine Hepburn ran the gamut of emotions from A to B." This is where the famous line "The calla lilies are in bloom again" is uttered by Hepburn. In rehearsal she butchers the line and the scene in the most horrendous fashion. But then, in the grand tradition of opening nights in such films, Terry turns in a transcendent performance. The comparison of the two scenes is ample evidence of the range of Hepburn's acting talents at this point in her career.

Admittedly it seems strange that Terry could be so inept, but the transformation is rewarding, as is the payoff of the film. However, Hepburn's performance was apparently overshadowed by the realization that Ginger Rogers was also a pretty good comedienne as well as a great dancer. Still, it is the ensemble nature of the film, with all those wisecracking young girls trying to make it in the big bad city that is the prime attraction. "Stage Door" received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Writing (Screenplay), Best Director for Gregory La Cava, and Best Supporting Actress for Leeds.