LADIES’ DAY

US, 1943, 62 minutes, Black and white.
Lupe Velez, Eddie Albert, Patsy Kelly, Max Baer, Jerome Cowan, Iris Adrian, Joan Barclay, George Cleveland.
Directed by Leslie Goodwins.

Ladies’ Day is the slightest of entertainments released during World War II. It is notable for the presence of Mexican star, Lupe Velez, best known as the Mexican Spitfire. She was from Mexico and starred in many American films during the 1930s, featured in a series of Mexican Spitfire comedies, directed by Leslie Goodwins, director of this film.

Eddie Albert was making his mark at this time, in a number of comedies. He is joined by a number of character actors including boxer, Max Baer, and Jerome Cowan as the owner of the baseball team, bespectacled and timid, an unusual performance from him.

Eddie Albert plays a champion pitcher in the baseball league, his team being very successful until Albert encounters Pepita, Lupe Velez, and is infatuated. Everybody tries means, physical and psychological, to distract him from his infatuation. Even the wives, form a club together especially for watching the matches, kidnap Pepita, organise for the owner to get her back to Hollywood to make a film which she does in rapid time. Ultimately, they spray a mercuachrome scent on her face, red spots indicating that she is sick – but, that does not daunt her – and Albert is able to succeed in winning the championship.

So this is what light supporting features entertainment was like in the 1940s.