User Reviews

Whether you regard this movie as a "flawed gem" or a "near miss" depends primarily upon your attitude toward Ginger Rogers, Walter Connolly and Tim Holt. I personally endorse any film starring Ginger Rogers. It is probably a sad truism that most people outside Miss Rogers' fan base think of her primarily as Fred Astaire's dancing partner and co-star and do not know that she was a huge and very versatile star in her own right. This is not one of her best roles, nor is it one of her worst. However, even in this role, she mesmerizes me with her mere presence. For me, her beauty and charm always radiate from the screen.

In the thirties and forties, Hollywood embraced a number of actors with incredibly distinctive voices - Walter Brennan, Andy Devine, Wallace Beery, Eugene Palette, AND Walter Connolly, to name a few. I always enjoy seeing these actors for their unique vocal qualities alone. Here, Connolly is a treat not just for his vocal quality, but for his portrayal of a simple man elevated to an unanticipated level of affluence who is threatened with the complete loss of control of both his business and his family. He is simple, but not stupid. When he encounters Ginger Rogers in the park, he hits upon a scheme to salvage his family that ends up salvaging his business, as well. The film's plot revolves around this plan, and it is a great concept for a comedy movie.

Tim Holt enjoyed two great roles in his career - the spoiled son, George, in The Magnificent Ambersons; and Bogey's sidekick, Curtin, in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Both stories are dramas, and he has serious, uncomplicated dramatic roles in both. To me, he was ill-suited to a comedy such as 5th Avenue Girl. Due to either the direction or his own initiative, he portrays a character that is not very clearly projected or very sympathetic. He never convinces me that he is actually "falling" for Ginger. He is her primary antagonist for most of the film, and he constantly rags on her. I suspect that Tim Holt is not capable of the nuanced performance necessary to convey his gradually increasing emotional involvement with Ginger or to create a more sympathetic character.

In two key scenes, Holt abruptly attempts to plant a big kiss on Ginger. Both scenes are extremely awkward and detract from the film.

The first attempt is on a park bench, without any indication that Holt has begun to soften his stance against Ginger. In an earlier scene, he grudgingly admits that she looks pretty in a new dress.

The second scene is on the front porch of the family home. We haven't seen any build-up because the cut from the previous scene is so abrupt. All we see is Ginger shoving him and his unwanted kiss away from her - as she would any cad. If the movie had shown some growing tenderness and affection and warming dialog in the front porch scene, we would know that he is not just trying to jump her bones. But even in the few lines he has that are not critical of Ginger, his tone is harsh and accusatory.

Thus, for me the lack of a sense of chemistry between Holt and Rogers is what keeps this film from being a classic comedy. It is still very enjoyable, whether you regard it as a "flawed gem" or a "near miss."

A comedy of manners that out-stays its welcome, thanks mainly to the fact that it is over-blessed with talk, talk, talk! True, the actual situations did hold out some promise, but thanks to Hollywood's usual timidity in dealing with any plot twists that were even mildly risqué, we are left with just an overdoes of dull talk, compounded by the fact that director Gregory La Cava's pace is tiresomely slow.

Talk, talk, talk! Those viewers who like to have their ears bashed will not be disappointed. I will admit there are a few moments of quiet chuckles here and there, thanks to the expertise of Walter Connolly, Franklin Pangborn and Miss Rogers herself. And I liked Jack Carson as the sailor with love and romance on his mind!

In 5TH AVENUE GIRL, director Gregory La Cava seems to have anticipated Howard Hawks's HIS GIRL Friday by giving us a loose remake of MY MAN GODFREY with a key sex role reversal. A down-on-her-luck woman (Ginger Rogers) is thrust into the bosom of a bizarre wealthy family and goes a long way towards straightening them out. 5TH AVENUE GIRL presents a slightly more serious treatment, its family less eccentric and rather more mean than that of GODFREY, and the movie suffers for the changes. It was the second of three straight films that La Cava made with Ginger Rogers, and by my lights is easily the least of the three.

On the plus side, the real star of the show is the fine character actor Walter Connolly, getting a rare opportunity to front a major film near the end of his life. As the put-upon manufacturer emotionally deserted by his ungrateful family he successfully evokes the audience's sympathy and shares a pleasant chemistry with Rogers, who is in full- scale deadpan mode (to an excessive degree in my opinion). The rest of the cast is adequate with the exception of Tim Holt, a dead weight in pretty much everything in which I've seen him with the notable exception of THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRES. A major problem for 5TH AVENUE GIRL is the complete lack of development of its love interest subplot. Indeed, with the exception of Connolly's industrialist, pretty much everything in 5TH AVENUE GIRL remains undeveloped, including the character of the 5th Avenue Girl herself, which remains vague and sketchy throughout (this young lady is remarkably nonchalant about being down to her last $5. Why?). Indeed, we get far more details about the communist chauffeur and the idiot rich girl than we ever get about Rogers' 'Miss Grey'.

The whole film leaves me with a shrug of the shoulders. It's overtly sociological but never goes beyond 'the rich are people, too'. It's a comedy but is never really very funny. It's not exactly bad, but not really good, either.

I guess I'm a lotta help, aren't I?

I love Ginger Rogers. I don't much care for her dance movies, but I like her comedies. I like this movie.

The plot of this movie is simple and incongruous: A wealthy business-owner has big problems and a family that doesn't love or respect him. His solution to fix everything is to pretend to have a mistress. Somehow, this DOES fix everything.

The acting is competent. The lead male is a funny guy, with kind of a cartoon voice. I don't know if it started as a play, but it definitely had that feel to it.

I recommend this one...