Kitty Foyle

Plot synopsis:
Kitty Foyle (Ginger Rogers), a saleswoman in a New York boutique working for Delphine Detaille (Odette Myrtil), faces a life-changing decision: marry doctor Mark Eisen (James Craig) or run away to South America with the man she has loved for many years, the already-married Wyn Strafford (Dennis Morgan). As she wrestles with her decision, the film flashes back to her youth in Philadelphia.
As a teenager, Kitty gawks at the city's elite "Main Liners" in a parade that precedes their annual Assembly Ball. Her father (Ernest Cossart) warns against getting carried away with her fantasies. Ironically, Kitty meets the embodiment of her dreams in an acquaintance of his: Wynnewood Strafford VI. Wyn offers her a secretarial job at his fledgling magazine. The two fall deeply in love, but when the magazine folds, he does not have the will to defy his social class's strictures by proposing to a woman so far below him socially.
With the death of her father and no prospect of marriage with Wyn, Kitty goes to work in New York for Delphine. One day, she presses the burglar alarm button by mistake at Delphine's fashion store. She pretends to faint to cover her blunder and is attended to by Mark. Mark, aware she is faking it, playfully blackmails her into a first date.
Wyn finally breaks down and finds Kitty in New York. The two wed, but agree that the only way their marriage can work is if they do not live in Philadelphia. When he introduces her to his family, she gets a chilly reception. She also learns that Wyn would be disinherited and left penniless if he does not remain in Philadelphia and work in the family banking business. She realizes, though Wyn is willing to try, he is not strong enough to deal with poverty. She walks out and they are divorced.
Kitty returns to New York, where she learns that she is pregnant. When Wyn arranges to meet her, her hopes for a reconciliation are raised, only to be dashed when she sees a newspaper announcement of Wyn's engagement to someone of his own social standing. She leaves without seeing him and receives a further blow when the baby dies at birth.
Several years later, Kitty reluctantly agrees to open a Philadelphia branch store for her friend Delphine. By chance, she waits on Wyn's wife and meets their son. She takes the opportunity to entrust the secret return of a family heirloom ring to the boy.
The film returns to the beginning. She decides to marry Mark.

Tags: melodrama, romantic, flashback

Review:
Ginger Rogers gives an outstanding performance of a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks that stands up to society and makes her way on her own.It is incredibly forward thinking for the time period and yet it deals with struggles that seem to be timeless.I give it as many stars as can be given.
Rogers is great as the working girl heroine- Kitty Foyle, but so is Morgan as the wealthy socialite, Wynn Stafford.
While I still prefer a Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire film like TOP HOT, this film is probably Ms. Rogers' best film because she is clearly THE star and the film gives her a good chance to show her acting ability.
In fact, for this film she earned the Best Actress Oscar, though I really think that perhaps both Bette Davis' performance in THE LETTER and Katherine Hepburn's in PHILADELPHIA STORY were both a bit better.
Perhaps she won that year because KITTY FOYLE is a very sentimental film or perhaps the other two actresses lost because they'd both already received that award.
James Stewart wins his Academy Award for The Philadelphia Story and Ginger Rogers who he was going out with at some point, wins Best Actress for Kitty Foyle, a film also set in Philadelphia.
Too bad neither the Athletics or the Phillies won the World Series that year, but neither of them came close.Although Stage Door more than amply demonstrated Ginger Rogers's abilities at serious drama, this particular film cemented her as dramatic actress.
After Kitty Foyle she rarely did any musicals.The story is told in flashback after Ginger engages in some dialog with her alter ego in the mirror.
So the ego narrates the ups and downs of the life of Kitty Foyle.Ginger's a working class Irish lass whose got two men going for her big time, young earnest doctor James Craig, and mainline millionaire heir Dennis Morgan.
Starting with her teenage years growing up working-class Irish in 1920s Philadelphia we learn how poor Kitty met and fell in love with a rich Mainline aristocat, and got herself in such a predicament.Ms. Rogers won best actress for her role as Kitty, but the rest of the cast is no less deserving.
Ginger Rogers gives a good performance as "Kitty Foyle", making it worth seeing even though the film is otherwise a mostly average production.
Fortunately, Ginger is able to carry the load.Many of us would have loved to see more Astaire-Rogers musicals, but you can see why Ginger wanted a chance to perform more dramatic roles, to show what she could do.
Story of a working girl stuck on two different suitors, one with old-generation money and the other no less than a doctor, comes dangerously close to being a mawkish soap opera, but firm handling by director Sam Wood and an Oscar-winning performance by Ginger Rogers in the lead ultimately make the picture work.
While I am quite fond of Ginger Rogers - both her performances and her personality - "Kitty Foyle" is not an Oscar-worthy film.
Yes, she does a great job, but not superior to Hepburn ("The Philadelphia Story"), Davis ("The Letter"), Fontaine ("Rebecca") or Scott ("Our Town") - all nominated actresses in the same category.The book upon which this film is based was somewhat controversial at the time - abortion, extramarital affairs, etc.
Enjoyed this film starring Ginger Rogers, (Katherine "Kitty" Foyle) playing the role of a young girl who works for a magazine in Philadelphia and was hired by a man during the great depression.
This is a wonderful,romantic film.Ginger Rogers won an Oscar for her role.She certainly deserved it.Dennis Morgan gives an excellent performance as the man Kitty's in love with.This film made Dennis a star.I would think so!!James Craig was perfect as the doctor.Watch this movie and you'll find out what "EXCELLENT" movies are made of.Believe me,you'll be applauding at the end!.
Ginger Rogers, as the titular character, gives a very moving performance, for which she won an Academy Award, as a woman torn between two men.
Whatever the novel's merits, the screen play is a tired collection of pulpy womens' magazine clichés, already quite played out by 1940.For Ginger Rogers, her lead as "Kitty" is anything but new turf, (and hardly Oscar worthy) and is in fact, both in dialog and situations a retread of many of her thirties roles.
We have, for example, Gladys Cooper in the mink collar on the camel back sofa (again), Kitty's father, a Faith and Begora tippling Irishman, (a la Charles Winninger the other flustered shamrock pater in all those Judy Garland vehicles), wisecracking plain Jane roommates who eat sandwiches as they let down Murphy Beds, and a really embarrassingly bad scene in which Kitty "tells off" her high born in laws, that seems drawn of equal parts Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Joan Blondell.After hearing her "corn beef and cabbage are better than Beef Wellington!" style denunciation, you'll be on the side of the aristocrats.It doesn't help that a puffy faced Rogers (then only 30) photographs much older, perhaps owing to an unflattering selection of brunette coiffures.
Indeed, she looks MUCH better 10 years later, as witness the "Manhatten Downbeat" section of "Barkleys of Broadway" or "Storm Warning" (1951).At least this film's sets were able to be re-purposed to much greater advantage, particularly by Val Lewton in his "Seventh Victim," (the speakeasy in "Kitty Foyle" receives better exposure as Natalie Cortez' Greenwich Village living room).
The Best Actress Oscar given Ginger Rogers for this may not be the least deserved in movie history.
Sometimes the Hollywood Establishment has a way for rewarding some people for the wrong kind of film, but in recognition of excellent contribution to the American cinema."Kitty Foyle" is basically a soap opera about a strong woman who makes the mistake of falling in love with a society man, which has served as the plot for other, better done movies.
James Craig makes a good appearance as the doctor who falls for the woman who probably will never love him.The movie will probably resonate a lot of women that love the genre.
Among the most famous examples are David Niven's ageing fraud/pervert in SEPARATE TABLES (1958) and John Wayne's initial appearance as Marshal "Rooster" Cogburn in the original version of TRUE GRIT (1969), but no less discussed (that is, for not being entirely deserving of the accolade!) is Ginger Rogers' dramatic turn here as a "white-collar" girl.The film received a total of five nominations, the others being in the following categories: Best Picture, Direction, Screenplay (in the name of Dalton Trumbo, despite Donald Ogden Stewart's credit for "Additional Dialogue" – ironically, the award went to the latter regardless...for his sterling work on THE PHILADELPHIA STORY!) and Sound Recording.
Having mentioned Stewart's double duty that year, as I lay watching this, I could not help noticing that several participants had more than one title in the Oscar race: director Wood also helmed OUR TOWN, Rogers herself appeared in PRIMROSE PATH, Eduardo Ciannelli (memorable here as the staunchly Republican owner of a speakeasy, which then has to go legit when Prohibition is repealed by the Democrats!) was featured in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, while Gladys Cooper and Florence Bates were both among the supporting cast of REBECCA (the eventual Best Picture winner)!
Anyway, it appears that the film-makers did not want to take any chances and, so as to not to allow the leading lady to be upstaged by her male counterparts (yes, this is the typical 'girl torn between two lovers' narrative), they chose two relatively new faces – namely Dennis Morgan (who at one point spoofs Ronald Colman i.e. Rogers' co-star in her previous movie, LUCKY PARTNERS {1940}!) and James Craig – to whom the epithet "nondescript" would seem to apply quite nicely!
"Kitty Foyle" has cemented its place in film history as being the movie that brought Ginger Rogers an Academy Award for Best Actress, but I have to believe this was one of those cases of the Academy randomly picking a dramatic performance with which to honor an actress who had given at least a dozen comedic performances that were better."Kitty Foyle" sadly doesn't have much to recommend it.
In addition to Rogers' win, "Kitty Foyle" was nominated for four other Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director (Sam Wood, criminally nominated for an Oscar in a year when Charlie Chaplin wasn't), Best Screenplay (Dalton Trumbo, the only Oscar nomination for which he was able to actually take credit at the time before being blacklisted), and Best Sound Recording.Grade: C.
A good role in a flawed film, I chuck this one to the director since the script is on point from Dalton Trumbo (Spartacus/The Brave One) but the strength of Rogers turn is let down on an over reliance on flashbacks..
Other than being a sartorial trendsetter of its namesake Kitty Foyle dress, Sam Wood's solid screen adaptation of Christopher Morley's novel, penned by Mr. Trumbo, also confers its star Ginger Rogers a golden opportunity to strut her stuff, not her usual terpsichorean nimbleness, but her acting bent, and its reward is a hard-earned Oscar statuette, pipping strong contenders like Bette Davis in THE LETTER (1940, 8.0/10), Joan Fontaine in REBECCA (1940, 8.3/10) and Katharine Hepburn in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940, 8.1/10).
After a prologue demonstrating the victory of gender equity in the beginning of twentieth century, here comes our heroine Kitty Foyle (Rogers), a New York saleswoman from Philadelphia, facing a difficult choice, there are two suitors awaiting her at midnight, one is doctor Mark Eisen (Craig) who loves her affectionately and another is her sweetheart Wyn Strafford (Morgan), whom she is enamored with, but a married man now who proposes that they can start anew in South America.
Two supporting stars, Dennis Morgan and James Craig both make a great impression as an open-faced, suave gentleman without wiles, what differentiates them is where do they come from, not a bad marriage advice for today's singletons although the film itself is as workmanlike as it is anodyne, a typical end product of Hollywood in thrall of production code..
Kitty Foyle (Ginger Rogers), a hard-working white-collar girl from a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania low, middle-class family, meets and falls in love with young socialite Wyn Strafford but his family is against her.I say this is almost a feminist film because it seems way ahead of its time in many ways.
Sure, because of the era, the woman is still somewhat at the mercy of the man, but the casual way she dates men (even implying she is "making love" before marriage) is surprising.Ginger Rogers is a great lead, and easily outshadows her male suitors.
Ginger Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress in KITTY FOYLE as the hard-working, stubborn Irish lass who learns more than a few lessons about life, love and the social strata in this affecting melodrama.The film opens with a surmise of the changing role of women in Philadelphian society in the early part of the 20th century.
This panoramic examination of changing social mores and conventions zooms in for a more personal look at one Kitty Foyle, a young working girl from the wrong side of the tracks who falls for her boss Wyn Strafford (Dennis Morgan), part of the Philadelphian social set.
You decide.Rogers, whose Oscar win is often hotly debated by classic film fans, is good, not yet entirely great in the role.
Considering the quality of the performances nominated against hers in 1940- Joan Fontaine in REBECCA, Bette Davis in THE LETTER, Katharine Hepburn in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY- Rogers win seems undeserved.
Gladys Cooper appears in a small role as Wyn's disapproving mother, and Ernest Cossart (sort of a poor man's Thomas Mitchell) is memorable as Kitty's father.KITTY FOYLE possesses an average script that is lifted by it's interesting themes of social divide, women in the workforce, divorce and single mothers.
Ginger Rogers, in the title role, is enchanting as always, but the screenplay comes up just a bit short in the end.The problem is this:  The entire picture focuses on Kitty's relationship with a rich Philadelphia aristocrat, and is very good at showing us why she should and shouldn't run away with him.
Just some small changes in the script, ones that wouldn't have been too difficult to make, and it could have been a Hollywood classic.Ginger Rogers won an Academy Award for Best Actress for playing the title character, a Philadephian of a modest, Irish upbringing.
Setting the novel in Philadelphia (although from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Morley grew up in Baltimore, and later lived in New York State - his cabin is in a park out on Long Island), he tells a story of a young, determined woman (Ginger Rogers) who is from the wrong side of town.
The story follows Kitty over a period of seven years, and her relationship with Wyn and with Mark (James Craig), a doctor from New York City.
The story is one of those "sandwich" types that begin with the current life of Kitty, and how she has a chance to either marry Mark or run off with Wyn. We then see the whole past history of Kitty, and are not told until the final moment which of the two she will go with.Despite elements of tragedy, the film is not totally a downer.
Ginger Rogers marries Dennis Morgan, but a few days later realises she has made a mistake when his snobbish family won't accept her as she is.
Ginger Rogers won the Ocscar for Best Actress for this movie & she really deserved it.
In fact, her performance makes this movie one I prefer over The Philadelphia Story which has more big names in it's cast & this film is often compared with.It was a daring role for Rogers at the time she made this film.
Put this one on your list as one of the films which deserves a viewing as Rogers performance in this one makes her much more than "Fred Astaires Dance Partner"After this movie, Warner Brothers offered Ginger the starring role in NOW VOYAGER which she turned down & became a very good movie for Bette Davis.
Ginger Rogers puts in a fine performance and Sam Wood tries to pull all your heartstrings, but ultimately they're undone by the conventions of a formula whose time has long passed.Kitty Foyle (Rogers) is a young daughter of a working class Irishman (Ernest Cossart) who has Cinderella dreams.
The creators of this movie do a few unexpected things, like giving Kitty an older woman friend, and making her romantic rival someone the audience will like, but I couldn't recommend this film to anyone but diehard Ginger and Dennis Morgan fans..
KITTY FOYLE was a good movie that could have been a lot better.
As the film opens Kitty has to make a choice between the two men who are in love with her, Mark Eisen, an idealistic young doctor, and Wynnewood ("Wyn") Strafford VI, the scion of a wealthy Philadelphia banking family who are so grand that for at least six generations they have been adding Roman numerals after their names as though they were royalty.At first it seems obvious whom she will choose.
Their marriage broke down largely because of the opposition of his family to his marrying a woman from a different social class, but despite their divorce, and his subsequent remarriage to the daughter of another rich family, Wyn and Kitty have remained in love with one another.
Yet, although there is nothing particularly wrong with Rogers' acting, I think that she was very fortunate to take "Best Actress" ahead of Joan Fontaine in "Rebecca", Katharine Hepburn in "The Philadelphia Story" and Bette Davis in "The Letter", three better performances in three better films in what was a very strong year in cinematic history.
Ginger Rogers was fine as the title character, and this film gave her a chance to demonstrate that she was more than a star of musicals.
After an opening sequence in which we see the transition of women in society from the turn of the 20th Century until the present day, we meet Kitty Foyle (Ginger Rogers), an independent, hard-working young woman who is a combination of both the old fashioned idealist and the new order feminist.
This is a woman of total integrity, determined to find love yet maintain her idealism and free spirit.As a result, Kitty falls in love with two men: a member of the wealthy Philadelphia society (Dennis Morgan) and an aspiring doctor (James Craig) who comes to her "rescue" when she "faints" after accidentally setting off the burglar alarm at the elite Manhattan department store she works at.
Reunited with Craig, Rogers must make a decision when Morgan comes back into his life after a failing marriage that has given him a young son.The soap opera elements of the story are so light-hearted that this can't be classified as the type of film that actors such as Irene Dunne, Margaret Sullavan and Ann Harding were playing.
While Dennis Morgan and James Craig give very good performances as Strafford and Eisen,Ginger Rogers stays the centre of attention with an outstanding performance as Foyle.
Ginger in a great dramatic role, but I miss her from her fabulous dancing movies with Fred Astaire.
Ginger still looked good in "Kitty Foyle"; she carried the movie, and was the main character.
Basically in New York is a saleswoman Kitty Foyle (Oscar winning Ginger Rogers) working in a boutique working for Delphine Detaille (Odette Myrtil).
She faces a life-changing decision: marry doctor Mark Eisen (James Craig) or run away with the man she has loved for many years, the already-married Wyn Strafford (Dennis Morgan), to South America.
Wyn finally breaks down and finds Kitty in New York, they get married, but agree it is best they do not live in Philadelphia, then he introduces her to his family, and she gets an icy reception.