Ellie Mae lives on Primrose Hill with her good-hearted and fancy free mother, her drunken father, her younger sister and a mean-spirited grandmother. The Hill is not a good part of town, however. When she meets and falls for a hard-working man, they marry and she hides her past from him. When he discovers the truth it jeopardizes their marriage.
Acting
Ginger Rogers finally gets to be messy, not just twirly.
Direction
La Cava squeezes every drop of pathos from a cramped kitchen.
Writing
Dialogue that walks the razor's edge of Hays Code approval.
Director
Gregory La Cava
Ginger Rogers
Ellie May Adams
Joel McCrea
Ed Wallace
Marjorie Rambeau
Mamie Adams
Henry Travers
Gramp
Miles Mander
Homer
Queenie Vassar
Grandma
Joan Carroll
Honeybell
Vivienne Osborne
Thelma
Bobby Barber
Benny (uncredited)
Louise Beavers
Woman Talking to Police (uncredited)
Edgar Dearing
Motorcycle Policeman (uncredited)
Robert Emmett Keane
Gossip in Diner (uncredited)
Charles Lane
Mr. Smith (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on a play that shocked Broadway in 1939 with its frank treatment of prostitution — the film had to soften Mamie's profession into vague 'entertaining.'
Rogers fought for this role after being typecast in musicals; she later said playing Ellie Mae proved she could 'smell of greasepaint and misery.' She was Oscar-nominated that same year for Kitty Foyle.
US
