In some ways, "Stage Mother" is a decent film. But to me, it was really lacking something that it sorely needed....characters you could care about and like. Too often, folks are either jerks or plastic.When the film begins, Kitty (Alice Brady) is a stage star, as is her husband. However, he's killed and Kitty is stuck...pregnant and without much of a life for the kid. So, she moves in with the husband's family and spends a few years living the suburban life. However, she becomes bored and goes back to the hard life of the vaudeville stage and she leaves her daughter with his family. Years pass, Kitty's prospects are exhausted so she takes a behind the stage job--and brings her daughter, Shirley (Maureen O'Sullivan) to live with her. Kitty doesn't do this out of the goodness of her heart. Her plan is to make Shirley a star and live off her! And for the remainder of the film, Kitty manipulates her daughter and sees her rise to the top. But, when Shirley meets a nice guy (Franchot Tone) and wants to settle down, Kitty decides to destroy this relationship for her own selfish reasons. What's next? See the film...or not.As I mentioned, the characters (particularly Kitty) all seem like low-lifes. As for Shirley, she's nice...but in a very bland way and has little backbone. All in all, a curiously uninvolving story that should have been either more humanized or more hard-edged. By the way, there are a lot of song and dance numbers that looked like they were choreographed by Busby Berkeley's less talented cousin...or dog.

When Phillips Holmes signed a contract with MGM at the end of 1932 he had had a very up and down career at Paramount. When he was good (ie "Stolen Heaven") he was great, but when he was given a one dimensional role (ie "Confessions of a Co-Ed") he didn't have the ability to rise above the part. Even though he worked hard in 1933 (9 movies) he was obviously considered just another actor - he wasn't even considered important enough to be given a reasonable part in MGM's prestigious "Dinner at Eight", being relegated to Madge Evan's boyfriend, a part of only a few minutes screen time. Alice Brady, on the other hand, was having a wonderful professional year. She had been an ingenue in movie's early days but after a few setbacks left the movies for the stage where she dazzled critics with her performances. By 1933 she was ready to give movies another go and in this one she played the title role a "stage mother" and her eccentric mannerisms were kept to a minimum.Life has not been kind to Kitty (Brady) - her first husband is killed during a high wire vaudeville act (Russell Hardie looks impossibly young - young enough to be her son, it is not a good look) and husband number two (Ted Healy) is divorced for being caught once too often in a chorus girl's dressing room. She then pins all her hopes on her daughter, Shirley (O'Sullivan) who had been brought up by a puritanical aunt. If Warners had made the film it would have been a hard hitting expose of the real life of a young performer but MGM made Brady's character sympathetic by giving her a lot of humour. She becomes a "stage mother", pushing and prodding her daughter into dancing lessons that eventually pave the way to a Broadway show. As played by the fetching Maureen O'Sullivan, Shirley appears to have got by on her looks as her dancing in the big production number "Beautiful Girl" (Bing Crosby had a big hit with the song) is at best quite amateurish. You will definitely not mistake the dance routines for any that Busby Berkeley created!!!But Shirley's heart has never been into "showbiz" and when she meets artist Warren (Franchot Tone) who has bought her childhood home, she soon dreams of wedding bells. That romance is quickly killed by Kitty, who is not above turning up at his parent's home and demanding $10,000 to call the wedding off and she is also not above blackmailing the producer of Shirley's current show into tearing up her 5 year contract so she will be free to star in "Rainbow Girl"!!! Kitty gets a taste of her own medicine when she and Shirley are forced to flee the country as some gangsters feel Shirley is getting too chummy with Broadway angel Al Dexter.It is on the continent that Shirley meets Lord Aylesworth (Phillips Holmes in a particularly thankless role that lasts only a few minutes) and finds out what the upper crust really thinks of her pushy parent. There is the usual showdown, in this case Shirley tearfully admits that she denied Kitty was her mother but just as quickly she is begging forgiveness as Kitty shows her a letter from Warren (that she had hidden!!!), where he confesses he will never stop loving her.A nice movie to watch on a rainy afternoon but not one you will remember.

With the rows and rows of dancing girls all in unison, I would have sworn that Busby Berkley or Ziegfeld had to be involved in this, but no sign of them mentioned on IMDb. Alice Brady is Kitty Lorraine, the pushy mom who makes sure her daughter Shirley (Maureen O Sullivan) gets ahead in show biz. As usual, Brady is loud and a little lower-class, but you know exactly where you stand, and she means well. O'Sullivan made a whole bunch of Tarzan movies, and was in the Thin Man. Franchot Tone is Shirley's boyfriend in one of his earliest film roles. O'Sullivan sings (or pretends to sing) several numbers. Story is soooo similar to Gypsy Rose Lee... she would have been about 20 when this film came out. Novel and screenplay of "Stage Mother" written by Bradford Ropes. Viewers will recognize Alice Brady as the silly giggling aunt from Gay Divorcée; she seems to have died young at 47. The cast list shows Larry Fine (one of the Stooges) as a customer in the music store, but I must have missed him. Fun story. Plot starts a little slow and sad, but gets better as it goes along. Director Charles Brabin had been making films for 20 years, and this was one of the last ones he made. Turner Classic shows this now & then, and has it listed as G rated, but that can't be right....

For most of its length, a good, tough melodrama of a mama (Alice Brady, excellent) living her life through her reluctant daughter (Maureen O'Sullivan), pushing her into show business and scaring away her suitors, and with them any chance of happiness.Co-screenwriter Bradford Ropes, who also wrote the novel on which "42nd Street" is based, knew this tawdry milieu intimately and wasn't afraid to expose its seamy sides; fortunately, the movie came just before the Production Code, so its portrayal of the shabbiness and moral compromises of the show biz doesn't pull its punches. It resembles "Gypsy" and the great early talkie "Applause," and in particular, its look at backstage and onstage vaudeville is historically fascinating. Its main shortcoming is a too-fast, too-tidy final reel that races unconvincingly toward a happy ending. Also, Maureen O'Sullivan, pretty and spirited as always, doesn't really convince as a young miss aiming to become the toast of Broadway. (She's dubbed, and that's clearly a double dancing in the long shots.) Till that rushed denouement, though, it's a brash and winning backstager, and Brady's uncompromising, unsympathetic performance stays with one for days.