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      Professional Sweetheart

      1933 1h 8m Comedy List
      Reviews 30% Fewer than 50 Ratings Audience Score As the "Purity Girl," radio star Glory Eden (Ginger Rogers) is forced by her sponsor, Sam Ipswich (Gregory Ratoff), to maintain a vice-free existence for brand image. Eden, on the other hand, is sick of playing it safe and wants to experience the dark side of life, so press agent Speed Dennis (Frank McHugh) convinces Ipswich to choose a "professional sweetheart" from her fans. When they choose Kentuckian Jim Davey (Norman Foster), they never expect Eden to actually fall in love with him. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

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      Steve D If I didn't know better I would think Ginger couldn't act after this one. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 05/07/23 Full Review ashley h Professional Sweethearts is a decent film. It is about radio singer Glory Eden is publicized as the ideal of American womanhood, in order to sell the sponsor's product Ippsie-Wippsie Washcloths. Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster give good performances. The script is a little slow in places. William A. Seiter did an alright job directing this movie. I liked this motion picture because of the humor and romance. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member After a rushed wedding and a escape down the hotel fire exit, Glory (Ginger Rogers, a fresh faced 22 years old here) and Jim (Norman Foster) head off in a taxi, leaving a bevy of busybodies and vested interests behind. Glory wants to see the bright lights and fun of Atlantic City, Jim wants to take her to a cabin and make her the woman she's supposed to be - the Purity Girl, all homemade cooking and flowers in the springtime. Once at the cabin, Jim gets upset at seeing his new wife in her underwear and decides she deserves a spanking. Naturally Glory finds this somewhat objectionable, leaping up and throwing things at him from the kitchen table. So Jim punches her. In the neck. Professional Sweetheart is all over the place morally. This has nothing whatsoever to do with it being made one year before the Hays Code censorship would have made it impossible to film. Whilst scandalous behaviour is certainly hinted at or desired by Glory, nothing is actually shown. The raciest the film gets is when Ginger removes her dress - fairly often - but it's worth remembering that whilst Jim is physically assaulting his wife - the same evening as the ceremony, the day after they met for the first time - she hasn't actually done anything yet. She talks of cigarettes, liquor and going to nightclubs, but her words reflect the frustration of her buttoned-up, contractual spick and span image. So far she's shown remarkable restraint to this lumbering man-boy (Foster was 30 at the time playing a 21 year old 'boy') whisking her off to a dingy cabin against her wishes. The screwball comedy routines of the supporting cast are fine, but subtract from what could have been an interesting character study. Instead all we learn is that Glory is willing to forgo all her dreams of independence fairly quickly, marry a strange man, nee wife beater, and then forgive him the instant he picks her up and calls her "baby." At least when Ginger gets a black eye at the end of Carefree it's a comedic device - and more importantly it isn't her leading man delivering it. The next time we see Glory, she's dressed in an apron serving a man gingerbread and tea. Yep, turns out, she wanted to be a housewife all along. The ending shifts everything a little more, but by this point you really don't care anymore. All potential Professional Sweetheart had to tell an interesting story is but a distant memory. Ginger does her best to carry the film but it's all in vain. And of course they dubbed out her singing voice. They couldn't even let us have that. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Professional Sweetheart

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      Critics Reviews

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      Raquel Stecher Out of the Past Professional Sweetheart (1933) is a lighthearted Pre-Code with a fantastic cast and a lot of charm. It suffers from the trappings of the era most notably in the depiction of gender and race. Jul 3, 2019 Full Review Read all reviews

      Movie Info

      Synopsis As the "Purity Girl," radio star Glory Eden (Ginger Rogers) is forced by her sponsor, Sam Ipswich (Gregory Ratoff), to maintain a vice-free existence for brand image. Eden, on the other hand, is sick of playing it safe and wants to experience the dark side of life, so press agent Speed Dennis (Frank McHugh) convinces Ipswich to choose a "professional sweetheart" from her fans. When they choose Kentuckian Jim Davey (Norman Foster), they never expect Eden to actually fall in love with him.
      Director
      William A. Seiter
      Producer
      Merian C. Cooper
      Screenwriter
      Maurine Dallas Watkins
      Production Co
      RKO Radio Pictures Inc.
      Genre
      Comedy
      Original Language
      English
      Runtime
      1h 8m