My Sister Eileen (1942)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Alexander Hall

Writers:

Ruth McKenney (stories)
Joseph Fields (play) ...

Release Date:

24 September 1942 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Sisters Ruth and Eileen Sherwood move from Ohio to New York in the hopes of building their careers. Ruth wants to get a job as a writer...

Plot Keywords:

Ohio | Sister Sister Relationship | Greenwich Village New York City | Beautiful Woman | New York City

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Rosalind Russell	...	Ruth Sherwood
Brian Aherne	...	Robert Baker
Janet Blair	...	Eileen Sherwood
George Tobias	...	Appopolous
Allyn Joslyn	...	Chic Clark
Grant Mitchell	...	Walter Sherwood
Gordon Jones	...	'The Wreck' Loomis
Elizabeth Patterson	...	Grandma Sherwood
Richard Quine	...	Frank Lippincott
June Havoc	...	Effie Shelton
Donald MacBride	...	Officer Lonigan
Frank Sully	...	Jenson
Clyde Fillmore	...	Ralph Craven
Jeff Donnell	...	Helen Loomis (as Miss Jeff Donnell)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Almira Sessions	...	Prospective Tenant (scenes deleted)
Forrest Tucker	...	Sandhog (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Rosalind Russell won the 1953 Tony Award (New York City) for Supporting or Features Actress in a Musical for "Wonderful Town" for the same role she played in this film in a Broadway musical based on the same novel as this movie.

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: When Bob puts Ruth in the taxicab outside of the police station, the shadow of the boom mic can be seen moving across the hood of the cab.

Quotes:

Ruth Sherwood: i hope some fresh air gropes its way in here - it's stifling!

Movie Connections:

Version of "My Sister Eileen" (1960)

Soundtrack:

Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech

Is that a Streetsweeper in My Livingroom

It's a circus, but you don't need an admission ticket. You can even peek in from the street and catch all the antics on your way to work. It's Ruth and Eileen's sub-level flat, and rents for only $48 a month with open grillwork onto a chaotic Greenwich Village street scene. Are these two ambitious Mid-western sisters ready for a pro-football player who sleeps over, a fast-talking landlord who paints like a Dodo bird, and a mysterious stranger who walks in and refuses to leave, Then there's the battalion of Portuguese naval cadets who mistake the flat for a dance studio. It's all part of this wacky, fast-paced take on Life in the Big City.

It's all good, innocent fun of course with a tempo that seldom falters, and when things do slow, there's always an underground jolt to mix it up again. Naturally, Rosalind Russell as the caustic older sister gets all the good throw-away lines, while Janet Blair as Eileen gets all the wolf whistles. Then there's the assorted characters-- Gordon Jone's trademark good-natured galoot, George Tobias' fractured ethnic type, and Chick Chandler's silent stranger more creepy than humorous. And, of course, no urban scene of the day would be complete without the bulldog-face of Donald McBride as the ever cranky cop. Together, they turn the flat into a stopover on the way to the funny farm. I expect more than a few Mid-Westerners packed up for New York hoping to get a share of madcap city life.

On a more serious note, the movie was made at a time when the "common touch" was being celebrated in popular culture. After all, it would take a combined national effort to defeat the Axis powers. So, it's not surprising that many movies celebrated the America of the "melting pot", complete with ethnic types, blue-collar characters, and frequent references to Brooklyn, the symbol of the melding.

Anyway, it's still a fun movie even if some skits do strain a bit. I guess the moral is that no city is too big for the talented. And especially, for the shapely. Then too, make sure to stick around for a very last scene that could not be more inspired or appropriate.