Even the great Margaret Sullavan can't make sense out of a character who starts out as a bossy, obnoxious, self-centered Broadway star, is humanized by hayseed soldier James Stewart by about the third reel, suddenly becomes a Nobly Suffering Heroine, still leads steady beau (and keeper) Walter Pidgeon on, and tries in every way to have her cake and eat it too. Later Sullavan and Stewart have a contest to see who can have the wettest eyes. It's a Borzage-like romance without the Borzage touch, and with cliches that must have been cliches even by 1938--the chorines trilling "Pack Up Your Troubles" as the World War 1 soldiers depart for France (and Sullavan's incongruous dubbing is unintentionally hilarious), the lovestruck private dreaming of his ladylove while peeling potatoes, the bombs-bursting-in-air war montages with ominous music. Amid such blarney it's a relief to have Pidgeon's unsentimental if slightly inert presence, and Hattie McDaniel as a maid who seems smarter and more commonsensical than anyone else in the movie.
Review of The Shopworn Angel
