Saleslady

Anna Nagel plays Mary in this Monogram picture. When the story begins, Mary goes to work--even though she comes from a rich family. On this job, she meets and falls in love with Bob and they marry. He has no idea she's loaded....so she decides not to tell him. In the meantime, Bob makes a lot of dumb choices....buying too many things on credit and getting heavily in debt. Eventually, debt collectors begin repossessing their stuff.

When Mary gets hurt and goes to the hospital, it comes out that she's got money and her grandfather (Harry Davenport) can bail them out of their predicament by giving Bob a great job. But Bob is a proud man and refuses...and alienates his wife in the process. What's next for these two?

The film has a very strong old fashioned message that a man is THE breadwinner and should NEVER rely on his wife...ever. This is pretty stupid when you think about it....but Bob wanting to work his own way out of his financial mess is commendable. Overall, a decent film with the oddly old fashioned theme. Good acting but only fair writing consign this one to the time-passer category.

All in all, it's a bland Monogram programmer. There's no real plot or suspense; instead the screenplay simply unwinds. The main aspect amounts to whether newly weds Nagel and Heyburn can make enough money to afford his free spending for her sake. After a persistent courtship, they marry. What Heyburn doesn't know is that Nagel's an heiress with a wealthy grandpa, but she's bored by the wealthy lifestyle. So, incognito, she gets a job in a new city, meets Heyburn, and embarks on a more routine lifestyle they can't really afford. So, will the struggling couple somehow manage or will Nagel finally seek help from wealthy grandpa.

Fortunately, the two leads inject personality into their roles that helps compensate the lack of their under-dramatized plight. Then too, I wonder how much Depression Era audiences sympathized with Nagel's rejection of a wealthy lifestyle they could only dream about. But then I guess her true love is supposed to compensate. As an old movie buff, I'd never seen or heard of Heyburn. He seems to have had an "uncredited" career. From here it looks like he deserved better. Anyway, look for cowboy star Don (Red) Barry in a bit part as a salesman of all things. All in all, the leads are better than the material or the flat direction. Otherwise it's an utterly forgettable sixty minutes.

Saleslady is not a bad picture from Monogram, but this same story had it been done at a place like MGM would have been done so much better. The premise of the plot isn't bad, but the execution shows the lack of production values that so typified these B films from Poverty Row studios.

Anne Nagel is concerned and rightfully so that she as the rich heiress of mattress king Harry Davenport will be courted by men who will be interested in her money. So she gets an apartment and a job in Chicago as a Saleslady and meets earnest Weldon Heyburn who is determined to get ahead. They fall in love and marry and live on his salary.

But unexpected things do happen and eventually she has to reveal that she's an heiress. I think one can figure out where this is going.

If this had been done at MGM with someone like Robert Montgomery in the lead and Carole Lombard as the heiress, given their production values and the talent and charisma of performers that I mentioned it would have been a winner. But Heyburn is earnest and oh so dull. Nagel does all right, but she isn't close to a Carole Lombard.

Best in the cast is Harry Davenport playing foxy grandpa, a part he played a couple dozen times or so. Be it MGM or be it Monogram, Davenport always gives it his best.

Saleslady could probably use a restoration, but that's not likely to happen.

Sound quality is pretty terrible... there's a high pitched noises and projector noises for most of the film, but we're probably just lucky to have this obscure film still around in any form. Anne Nagel is rich girl Mary Dakin. She's determined not to let anyone marry her for her family's money, so she gets a job working in a store. There, she meets and marries co-worker "Bob". The acting is "okay". No real surprises in this one...and I was kind of hoping for a twist or surprise. Her money and his lack of money or a career of his own is the conflict between them. SO similar to the plot of Columbia Picture's Holiday, which came out a couple months after this one. Wheldon Heyburn died young at 47, from numerous ailments. Nagel also died young at 50. Writer Kubec Glasmon was oscar-nominated for Public Enemy in 1931. HE died at age 40, just after this film was released. Seems to be a curse on the cast of this film! Director Arthur Collins only directed ten films, and this one was right in the middle of his career. This one is okay. Rated pretty low currently, but that's ony 64 votes so far. entertaining, if you can put up with the constant noise. Showing on the Epix channel.

Anne Nagel tells her grandfather, Harry Davenport, that it's time she gets married, but she wants a husband who wants to marry her, not her grandfather's mattress business. So she moves to Chicago and gets a job. Soon she meets on-the-make Weldon Heyburn, who proposes, but before she can tell him about the family fortune, he starts the usual guff about the man of the family making the money. Soon they are living fairly well, with everything bought on credit, until the crunch comes, and then....

It's a cheap but mildly ambitious effort from Monogram, and pretty good in the acting department, as you might expert with Miss Nagel and Mr. Davenport. Unhappily, while Mr. Heyburn is good looking, he's one of those actors who substitutes an emphatic delivery for emotion, and it grows tiresome after a bit. The result remains watchable through the end, thanks to a fine supporting cast, but rarely more than that.