BEAUTY FOR SALE (1933)

This plays like a pre-Code, non-musical version of a "Gold Diggers" movie, or more precisely like a non-show biz STAGE DOOR, in its plot specifics and trajectories. We follow the stories of three young women who work for Madame Sonia (Hedda Hopper) at her high class beauty parlor. Madge Evans is Letty, who, after the death of her father, lives for a time with her friend Carol (Una Merkel). Eddie Nugent is Merkel's wisecracking kid brother who has the hots for Evans, but she falls into an affair with a married man (Otto Kruger). Merkel sets her sights on a rich older man, while Jane, another salon worker (Florine McKinney), hides her fling with the boss's son (Phililps Holmes). There are some soap opera complications which involve an unwanted pregnancy and suicide (and a great and very modern looking shot of the poor girl when she finds out that her unborn baby's father has fled after promising to marry her). Once that plot winds up, the rest of the film is considerably lighter in tone. Other notable cast members include May Robson as Merkel's mother and Alice Brady as Kruger's cold and unthinking wife. Nugent's obnoxious puns are sort of fun ("No harm will come to that, as the the man said about the crosseyed old maid!"). Even for a pre-Code film, the references to premarital sex are surprisingly clear, and not everyone who engages is such activity winds up punished. Actingwise, Evans and Kruger, the central couple, are the weak links, but the film is worth seeing. [TCM]