This movie is a good caper comedy that stars Marion Davies, Pat O'Brien and Dick Powell, with a fine supporting cast. The premise is a good one, and novel for the time. A small town girl arrives in the Big Apple by train. She doesn't have a job and she has nowhere to stay. But she has brains, so she heads for the top hotel to get a job as a chambermaid. One wonders if the writers for the 2002 movie, "Maid in Manhattan," didn't get their ideas for their plot from this 1935 film. Davies plays Loretta (aka, Dawn Glory later). O'Brien is Click Wiley, a half of a promoter team that more often than not comes up with a con game of some sort to strike it rich. The other half of the team is Ed Olson, played by Frank McHugh. His fiancé is Gladys, played by Mary Astor. And the idol of Loretta is that dashing, if dangerously daring pilot, Bingo Nelson, played by Dick Powell. Some other actors add character to the story, which otherwise would be very thin. This isn't a laugh-a-minute film, based on a script of witty dialog. It has some of that, but mostly it's a comedy of situations that are most funny with errors on the part of Click and Ed. "Page Miss Glory" is one of the last movies Marion Davies made. After 49 films dating to 1917, she retired at age 40 in 1937. Apparently, her star was dimming although her later co-stars were among the top leading men of Hollywood. Since 1930, she appeared in films with Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper, Leslie Howard, Robert Montgomery, and O'Brien and Powell. I've enjoyed all of her several films that I've seen, but I note that her performance varies in those from good to excellent. She was at her best in comedy, for which she was best known. In those films especially, it's hard not to like this actress, or to appreciate her talent. The ebullient Davies is a delight. She always seems to have something to be cheerful about. And, she had a winning smile and sparkling eyes that just endear her that much more. Her fading from stardom at such an early age was probably due to several circumstances. Her long-running affair with the married William Randolph Hearst probably figured in somewhere. Hearst had promoted Davies aggressively in his magazines, when she was popular. His own Cosmopolitan Productions company starred Davies in more than one- third of its films over its 20-year life – which just happened to coincide with Davies' film career. But Hearst's empire was crumbling during the Great Depression. Davies was drinking heavily during this time, but the couple stayed together another 14 years until his death in 1951. After Hearst's death, Davies married actor Horace Brown, and they stayed together until her death from cancer at age 64 in 1961.Davies wrote the script of the first movie she made, and then in 1918-19 her next four films were produced by her own company. She was not wealthy on her own, so the financing for the kick-start of her career came from somewhere else – most likely Hearst. Davies wasn't among the great actresses of the silver screen in her short career. But she was very good and entertaining in most of her pictures. One can't help but ask the familiar questions that always seems to surface in discussions and writings about Davies. What might she have become? How might her career have developed if she had not met and taken up with the married mega-millionaire Hearst at the start?

In fact, the cast is about the only thing "Page Miss Glory" has in its favor. It is a 1930's comedy which has Marion Davies playing a slow-witted rube (think Gomer Pyle) who comes to the Big City to find a job. She catches on as a housemaid in a hotel, where Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh are staying. They are con men who hear about a beauty contest on the radio and cook up a scheme to win the prize money.It's not worth going into detail from there, because what follows is a dull story with a lousy script and jokes that fall flat, many of which have 'so's your old man'-type punch lines (I told you it was a 30's comedy). The camera lingers too long on some jokes and situations, taking some of the starch out of the humor, and Miss Davies overplays her part and flattens other spots which could have been funnier.O'Brien and Mc Hugh do their best, with O'Brien relying on his loud, rapid-fire delivery to gin up excitement. Mary Astor is on hand with little to do and is given some stale dialogue, and the same for Allen Jenkins, Barton MacLane and Patsy Kelly. The title song is fair at best. All in all, a forgettable effort directed by, of all people, Mervyn LeRoy, who should have known better.

...so if you are expecting a typical Marion Davies vehicle in which she is the center of attention most of the time you're going to be disappointed. However, if you're just looking for a fun fast moving comedy in the tradition of 1930's Warner Brothers this will hit the spot.There are two con-men (Pat O'Brien and Frank McHugh) inventing the concept of Photoshop over 50 years before it is a practical reality by entering a composite photograph in a beauty contest and winning, Marion Davies being brave enough to parade around before the camera for almost a full hour as an overweight plain chamber maid, and Dick Powell as a Dudley DoRight type of ace pilot with a chest full of medals who proposes to the beauty contest winner, who is, of course, a girl he's never even met since she doesn't exist. Marion's chamber maid character returns the sentiment having fallen in love with the pilot's picture. Mary Astor plays the mismatched and possessive fiancée of Frank McHugh's character.In short this movie is intentionally ridiculous fun. It pokes fun at publicity campaigns and what makes people famous and interesting to the press and has plenty of that rapid fire dialogue for which Warners was famous in the 30's. Just take off your thinking cap and enjoy.

Page Miss Glory is a Cinderella story, a breezy romp that makes you smile but doesn't make you think. It starts with a group of downtrodden friends (Frank McHugh, Pat O'Brien, Mary Astor) who always get swept up in get-rich-quick schemes. Their latest one is to make a composite photograph of the best female features and send it into a radio beauty contest. They call her Dawn Glory, but Miss Glory does not exist. They win the contest, but it causes a fervor with the public and a high demand for interviews. Aviator Bingo Nelson (Dick Powell) even falls in love with her and asks her hand in marriage. What to do? Con the hotel maid (Marion Davies) into posing as Miss Glory, that's what! Of course, Powell has his obligatory song which provides the film's title. Davies is quite beautiful though she is no spring chicken. She utilizes a slight accent, but does not really get a chance to show her comic potential. Still, the film is great entertainment.