Ruby Keeler had just left her contract at Warners under a cloud -- her last picture Ready Willing and Able(1937) had tanked with the critics, her husband Al Jolson had also been released from his contract with the studio both called home, and her last co-star Ross Alexander committed suicide. When her contract lapsed (Warner let her go because she passed on every so-so script they sent her), she jumped to RKO, where, rumors buzzed, they were looking to pair her with Astaire. In any case, RKO signed her to a $40,000, two-picture contract but strangely only made one movie with her. The "homespun comedy" about a war widow (Fay Bainter) trying to provide for her brood of four children (including Anne Shirley and Keeler) by turning a derelict mansion into a boarding house was Keeler's only film without music. The role Keeler played, as one of two sisters vying for the attention of local schoolteacher Ralph Thurston (James Ellison), had been originally intended for Katharine Hepburn, but Keeler rose to the challenge even without song and dance. Critics loved it, but Keeler never fulfilled her two picture deal with RKO because she hated the idea of getting second billing to Anne Shirley.

By Violet LeVoit