Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day Sixty-Nine: A sprinkling of Ginger

Before I started this voyage, I always thought that Ginger Rogers was just Fred Astaire's dancing partner in whimsical little films. Then I saw her small performance in 42nd Stret and then her starring role in Stage Door and suddenly my opinion of her changed. More research proved that she was one of 67 women who has one the Best Actress Oscar and she did at the 1941 Oscar ceremony in the film Kitty Foyle, which was also nominated for Best Picture. The film sees Rogers as the eponymous Foyle who from the outset has to choose between a sensible but dull Doctor and a man named Wyn who has turned up at her doorstep. As she leaves her apartment, seemingly to go off with Wyn, she is taunted by her reflection in a snow-globe which makes her relive her life up to this point. We see Kitty living in Philadelphia with her crotchety but loving father, who has a habit of exclaiming Judas Priest and telling his daughter to be realistic when it comes to choosing a partner. However while working as a typist she meets Wyn who is the member of the well-to-do Stafford family and runs a magazine which Kitty goes to work for. When Wyn's magazine goes under, Kitty tries to convince him to move to New York but he doesn't want to leave his jet-set lifestyle so she moves on her own and meets and starts dating doctor Mark. Wyn returns and the two get married but Wyn wants to change her into a society wife while Kitty still wants to work. Kitty then finds out she's pregnant and at the same time that Wyn is to remarry, tragedy comes thick and fast as she loses the child in cihldbirth and then returns to Philadelphia where she runs into Wyn and his new family. The film ends with her deciding to chose the sensible Mark as their dates seemed to have a lot less drama packed into them and because he was really a rather charming fella while Wyn was a bit of a bastard.

Kitty Foyle is considered to belong to the cannon of 'women's films' that were big from the thirties to the fifites. They always had a big female star and it usually appealled to a female audience as they could see elements of their life in them. For example the scenes in which Kitty shares a cramped New York apartment with two other shop girls would obviously resonate with females who were living alone for the first time. What I didn't like was the gender politics of the whole tihng where Kitty was only happy when she was with a man and indeed the premise of the film is that she should either be with Mark or Wyn there's never an argument made for her to be on her own. As we see towards the latter stages of the film bad things happen when she's on her own - her father dies and she loses her child who she was going to raise as a single mother which I'm assuimng was frowned upon at the time. That aside Kitty Foyle was a pleasent enough film which never dragged and at its centre was a passionate performance from Ginger Rogers who really did deserve that Bet Actress Oscar.