Classic Film Guide

Mannequin (1937) - full review!

Directed by Frank Borzage (Bad Girl (1931)), who also co-produced with Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this stereotypical rags to riches (poor girl becomes showgirl marries millionaire) story by Katharine Bush was turned into a fairly involving drama by screenwriter Lawrence Hazard and performances from Joan Crawford (in the title role, another term for runway model) and Spencer Tracy, their only pairing. Alan Curtis, who plays Crawford's smarmy deadbeat first husband perfectly, Ralph Morgan playing Tracy's adviser-business associate Briggs, and Mary Phillips as Crawford's showgirl friend provide support in addition to Oscar O'Shea and Elisabeth Risdon as Crawford's poor parents and Leo Gorcey as her wisecracking out-of-work younger brother. The film received an Academy Award nomination for its original song "Always and Always", sung by Crawford.

Crawford as Jessie Cassidy is a pure, hardworking gal that supports her family, which lives in a tenement on Hestor Street. After one Saturday night's date at Coney Island, she pleads with her boyfriend Eddie Miller (Alan Curtis) to take her away from it all, and he complies. While they're out celebrating their wedding with friends and family at a Chinese restaurant, the Millers meet John L. Hennessey (Tracy), a shipping magnate who'd once lived on Hestor Street before hard work, perseverance and time made him one of the best success stories to ever emerge from the slum community. The businessman had sent a bottle of champagne to the newlyweds table. Seizing upon the opportunity, Eddie brings his beautiful wife across the room to meet Hennessey and offers him a dance with her. Hennessey is smitten, but Jessie puts him off quickly because she's devoted to her husband, but the die has been cast.

Eddie turns out to be a scam artist, an unsuccessful one at that, and a gambler who loses his only prospect - a contract on an up-and-coming boxer he was managing - in a card game. Through Beryl (Philips), Jessie gets a job in a show and Eddie is perfectly happy to let his wife support him. He even encourages her to attend a party at Hennessey's, which the businessman uses to put the moves on Jessie. Again, she spurns him; an uncredited Jimmy Conlin plays an elevator operator. But soon, the show closes (an uncredited Granville Bates plays its producer), and Jessie learns that Eddie is in jail for a gambling losses at the racetrack. She goes to Hennessey to ask for $100, which he gives freely and then escorts her to the police department. After a brief confrontation between the two men, the couple returns to the squalor of their small apartment until Eddie proposes that Jessie marry Hennessey for his money and a quick divorce. Finally realizing what she's married, after a talk with her mother (e.g. about dreams that never materialized), Jessie walks out on Eddie.

Jessie gets a job modeling clothes that enables her to pay back the $100 to Hennessey within a few months time. He has been obsessing about her, she'd shown him that love does exist, and was so distracted that he turned down some advisers that had encouraged him to create a relief fund for hard times. Instead, Hennessey hires a detective to find out where she is and what she's been doing, but he doesn't find out until Eddie visits him one day. The businessman finds Jessie and eventually wins her over, if not for love, for a future as his wife. After a trip around the world together, which includes a homestead stay in Ireland, Jessie falls in love with Hennessey. But Briggs and business calls them home, and the businessman learns that his loyal employees have chosen to join a dock workers' union strike that will bankrupt him.

Meanwhile, Eddie tells Jessie that he intends to tell Hennessey about his original plan, but she says that she'll selflessly hurt herself by leaving the businessman before her former husband can destroy her current one. As she's leaving their lavish home without her jewels, Hennessey walks in; she points him to her farewell note which he reads without understanding it. Then Eddie walks in and inexplicably acts noble, refusing to reveal his plan; he says that there is no point since he'd read the papers and already learned that Hennessey is no longer rich. After Eddie has left, Hennessey puts it all together anyway and accuses Jessie of being part of a devious plan to exploit his love for her. She admits her knowledge of it, but insists that she was never a part of it. Jessie then takes off her coat and stays; she asks Hennessey if her jewelry is free and clear (of debt) and, when he says that it is, she says that they can hock it to start again, together. He finally realizes that she loves him and the two embrace as the scene fades to black.