Kay Francis's final film for RKO is a feminized, slightly salacious twist on the Cyrano story: A long-in-the-tooth gold digger (Francis) is unsure of how to continue her con game until a pretty gal (Mildred Coles) turns up hungry on her doorstep. The old pro spots a win-win partnership: my know-how, and your charms, means we'll never go hungry again. What could have been a real roll in the gutter in a pre-Hays code movie ends up being just naughty enough, with Nigel Bruce as a white-haired sugar daddy and James Ellison as .the gal's cowboy Prince Charming. Surprisingly, it's also sympathetic to women, a movie that's as honest about the impact of unwanted male attention as it is about the perks of being a gold digger. Enjoy also Margaret Hamilton's performance as Josie, the women's maid and confidant. While the Wicked Witch of the West was the role that cemented her legacy, here she gets to demonstrate how comedy, not villainy, was her real forte.

By Violet LeVoit