Kitty Foyle

Kitty is the daughter of a working-class family in Philadelphia. At work she meets the son of a wealthy family and the relationship fails on class; his circle will not have her. Years later she has to choose: run off with her former lover or stay with the doctor who wants her. The film uses the night of that decision as its frame. The subject is not love but the price of moving up. Kitty's problem is not whether she loves him; it is having to defend herself constantly in his world. The film says so plainly and installs an economic question inside a romance. The form rests on the frame story. Kitty talks to her own reflection in a mirror and the past opens from there. The device was unusual for its moment. Its best-known outcome is Ginger Rogers winning the best actress Oscar. She had been known until then for dance films and the role moved her into another category entirely. Dalton Trumbo is on the screenplay; he would be blacklisted a few years later. Dennis Morgan plays the wealthy man and James Craig the doctor. Sam Wood directs. Who it is for: viewers who like classical-era melodrama and Rogers. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by how the woman's choice is finally framed; the film lands somewhere more conservative than it began.