I saw this for the first time during TCM's marvelous marathon of Oscar- nominated films in advance of the Academy Awards. I've been on a non- dancing Ginger Rogers kick and she plays Ellie May,uneducated but spunky,self-confident and independent. She needs to get away from the family shack in a post-Depression shanty-town outside of San Francisco where she lives with Mamie, her hooker-with-heart-of-gold mother, Homer, her drunk of a dad, a nasty, slatternly grandmother, and Honeybell, her precocious Granny acolyte played by Joan Carroll. Ellie May gets picked up by Gramp, played by the always charming Charles Travers, who takes her to a cafe run by Ed, played by the always- charming Joel McCrae. She re-invents herself some when she gets a job at the cafe and it helps her adapt to a life outside of the slums. Ellie May and Ed fall in love and marry and are living pretty happily until a chance meeting with Mamie crashes the house of cards Ellie May thought she built. Ginger Rogers plays Ellie May much like Kitty Foyle - feisty, determined,with a soft spot for family. It is a wonderfully strong performance set off perfectly by Joel McCrae's quick wit and dry humor. it's a small movie but well worth the viewing.
Review of Primrose Path
