DESIRABLE LADY

US, 1944, 69 minutes, Black-and-white.
Jan Wiley, Phil Warren, Eddie Dunn, Janet Scott, Betty Blythe.
Directed by Donald Brodie.

This film was also called A Fig Leaf for Eve and had other titles to promote sales. However, it is slight, merely a historical footnote.

This is the story of a dancer, an exotic dancer in what seems a respectable nightclub. However, agent funds the police to arrest her as a publicity stunt. She encounters a bail bond officer, tells him/her story about her active parents dying in a fire and her living in an orphanage. He keeps a dossier on such matters and gets documents to support her claim (it later being revealed, after the agent has a fight with him, the gun struggle and the bond officer is killed).

While the dancer is upset, she is happy with the claim, goes to dinner with the family who are snobbish towards her, discovers a somewhat reprobate aunt they form a friendship. The uncle investigating the case is very sympathetic and sets her up in an apartment along with the aunt. The dancer decides to improve herself, taking all kinds of courses including Shakespeare.

Her prospective cousin takes after her snobbish mother and invites the dancer to participate in Cabo she is putting on – with the dancer deciding to do a scene from Antony and Cleopatra, the audience or laughing. She gets her revenge by doing her exotic dance – to great applause.

The audience actually never learns whether she is the rightful heiress although there is a lot of whistle thinking which may be true. However, she is supported by the aunt and realises she has fallen in love with the agent.