lugonian PAGE MISS GLORY (Warner Brothers, 1935), a Cosmopolitan production directed by Mervyn LeRoy, stars Marion Davies, formerly of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, making her Warner Brothers debut. PAGE MISS GLORY may not be the greatest comedy ever made, but much better than the four feature films that were to follow in general. What makes PAGE MISS GLORY succeed is its presence of the studio's own huge assortment of stock players, especially the third-billed crooner by the name of Dick Powel, having a very busy year for himself with six movie releases for 1935 alone.Plot summary: Loretta (Marion Davies) is a country girl from Red Hook arriving in New York City's busy Grand Central train terminal where, after given some guidance from Mr. Kimball (Harry Beresford), a traveler's aide, and only $27 to her name, comes to the Park Regis Hotel where she interviews herself to Mr. Yates (Berton Churchill), the assistant hotel manager, for a job. Loretta becomes the hotel's chambermaid and teams with Betty (Patsy Kelly) cleaning rooms and assisting guests. Her first good deed goes to Chick Wiley (Pat O'Brien), a promoter, and Ed Olsen (Frank McHugh), his assistant, of Room 1762, down on their luck and four weeks behind their bill. Believing they are hungry, Loretta offers them a rejected meal from one of the other guests which turns out to be dog food. Gladys (Mary Astor), a hard-working secretary and Ed's love interest, tries her best to assist in their lack of creativity to get themselves back into business. Upon reading a full page ad in a magazine for the submission of a photograph for the most beautiful girl in the world, Ed schemes up a publicity stunt by sending a composite photo of a fictional girl he names "Dawn Glory" in hope of winning the $2500 grand prize. Much to everyone's surprise, Chick wins, but is unable to produce the girl he's promoting to Slattery Hawkshaw (Lyle Talbot), a reporter for the Express insisting on an interview with Chick's Wonder Girl. It is only when Loretta, after beautifying herself at the beauty parlor, puts on the Miss Glory Silhouette Dress does the homely chambermaid become the new American Beauty. As fate would have it, Loretta, known to all as Miss Glory, is proposed marriage by Bingo Nelson (Dick Powell) over the radio only after having seen her photograph but never met her personally (except earlier at the hotel as a chambermaid). Though Loretta is madly in love with Bingo, her life gets a turnaround when she's abducted by hired thugs, Petey (Allen Jenkins) and Blackie (Barton MacLane), out for some ransom money.Also in the large assortment of Warners stock players are Joseph Cawthorn and Al Shean playing a couple of heavily accented rival businessmen; Lionel Stander (Nick, a Russian accented wrestler employed in the hotel baggage room); Hobart Cavanaugh (Kimball); and in smaller roles, Helen Lowell, E.E. Clive, Gavin Gordon, Irving Bacon and Jonathan Hale. Very much a straightforward comedy, the title song of "Page Miss Glory" (by Al Dubin and Harry Warren) is first heard briefly by an uncredited vocalist at a night club before Miss Glory has her daydreaming fantasy moment staring directly into the picture frame of Bingo (Powell) to come to life and sing the song directly to her.Though PAGE MISS GLORY gets off to a great start, it grows tiresome by the time it reaches its 93 minute conclusion. As usual, the cast does its best in what they do, namely Pat O'Brien as a scheming promoter; Dick Powell appearing in pilot's uniform throughout the story; the serious-minded Mary Astor, among the many others in this all-star cast. In conclusion, PAGE MISS GLORY very much belongs to Marion Davies alone. She's has some very fine moments, especially during the first half of the story during her amusingly fish-out-of-water hillbilly type in the big city to unexpectedly become an American Beauty.Never distributed to home video, PAGE MISS GLORY had its moments of glory when first broadcast on Turner Network Television (1989) before becoming a more permanent fixture on Turner Classic Movies cable channel. (***)

MikeMagi One of Hollywood's persistent myths is that Marion Davies was a dismal actress who received starring roles only because her longtime lover was Charles Randolph Hearst. Page Miss Glory disproves that notion. She was an adroit comedienne -- and here, she breathes life into a screwball plot that would have been pretty lame without her. She's a naive newcomer to New York working as a chambermaid at a hotel where con artists Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh haven't paid the tab for a month. How they turn her into the mythical temptress, Dawn Glory, and her romance with flier Dick Powell -- who's just as delightfully dopey as she is -- take up most of the film. You can probably chalk up the negative comments about Miss Davies to Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" in which Dorothy Commingore played Kane's mistress, a Davies-like actress known for her wooden performances. But catch "Page Miss Glory" -- or any one of several other movies she made before she quit the screen to look after Hearst -- and you'll discover just how much fun she was.

Maliejandra Kay Page Miss Glory is a Cinderella story, a breezy romp that makes you smile but doesn't make you think. It starts with a group of downtrodden friends (Frank McHugh, Pat O'Brien, Mary Astor) who always get swept up in get-rich-quick schemes. Their latest one is to make a composite photograph of the best female features and send it into a radio beauty contest. They call her Dawn Glory, but Miss Glory does not exist. They win the contest, but it causes a fervor with the public and a high demand for interviews. Aviator Bingo Nelson (Dick Powell) even falls in love with her and asks her hand in marriage. What to do? Con the hotel maid (Marion Davies) into posing as Miss Glory, that's what! Of course, Powell has his obligatory song which provides the film's title. Davies is quite beautiful though she is no spring chicken. She utilizes a slight accent, but does not really get a chance to show her comic potential. Still, the film is great entertainment.

tobornot2wew82c "PAGE MISS GLORY" A pleasant surprise viewing, we stumbled over this movie this morning on TCM (Turner Classic Movies). Our Satellite Service (DISH) provided its very brief introduction; noting that Marion Davies was in the Cast, we stayed on and viewed the entire show.I was raised in a family that did not admire Marion Davies nor, for that matter, W.R. (William Randolph Hearst). In fact, our family took its orders from the Legion of Decency listings; watching a condemned film could book you a ticket to H*E*L*L. Thus, I was amply supplied with bias and prejudice against the STAR of this movie. SURPRISE! Hey, I think she is acting! Just this week, I had read about the Production Code that governed what we the public could see - for example, the principals in a bedroom scene needed to keep at least one foot on the floor at all times. The article discussed the effect of the code upon how women were to be portrayed - before 1934, when the Code went into effect, women could be "sultry", "naughty", or whatever. After, however, the woman had to be relegated to unimportant and uninspiring roles; a rule, per the article, that led to popular male roles and the rise of male stars.MARION DAVIES was relatively unknown to me for the aforesaid reasons - for once, my "Videohound" was mute on the movie but did show that she had two other movies released on Video.So, we watched. We were seeing a CODE movie. A Cinderella story, she played an overly dumb blonde hotel room maid who (unwittingly)influenced a couple of promoters' efforts to create a pinup of the "the perfect" candidate for a beauty contest. The pinup is a composite of attractive parts of attractive women. Guess who looked like the imaginary pinup? We enjoyed the movie from start to finish and got a lot of good laughs - you would enjoy it. The only problem I had was the role played by Mary Astor - perhaps her sympathetic support lent stature to the movie but Astor's female role acted depressed and confused - not too dangerous to the men's silly schemes.I was sure that W.R. had meddled with the whole thing until I looked up "Page Miss Glory" in IMDb. From there, came most of the facts quoted above. It turns out that Davies' accomplishments included Movie Scripts and she produced a dozen movies. In all she acted in 48 movies from 1917 to 1937. Since "Page Miss Glory" was her 45th, it is a mature effort.