On Criterion, I watched the 1934 Pre-Code Hollywood film Finishing School, co-directed by George Nichols, Jr. and Wanda Tuchock, the latter who was one of the few women directors working in Hollywood in the 1930s. The film starred Frances Dee as Virginia Radcliff, a sheltered rich girl who is sent to a New York City finishing school by her parents (John Halliday and Billie Burke), and gets an education in rebelling as a regular teen girl, with Ginger Rogers as a "bad girl" type named Pony who opens up her world. Virginia also falls in love with a medical intern (Bruce Cabot), Mac, who works as a waiter for a living, and the school and her mother oppose the relationship.
It's a really interesting movie, and it feels more modern as a "teens rebelling against authority" kind of movie, as well as being a movie about how older women can force younger women to conform to society, suppressing and policing them, shaming them for indulging in sex and alcohol, and are more interested in keeping up appearances than caring about the girls' well-being.
Dee, who married Joel McCrea around this time and retired from her Hollywood career in the 1950s, is really good as an innocent girl who starts off seeming like a square, refusing to drink alcohol and throwing her roommates' bottle of liquor against the mantel, but earns the respect of the "bad" girls for not snitching on them when caught passing notes in class, who frequently writes letters back and forth with her beau whenever she gets in trouble for seeing him, and is rightfully angry and terrified when the headmistress tries to have her physically examined without her consent by the school nurse. (I was unsure if she was being checked to see if she was a "virgin," but the violation was clear). I love when she is defiant about being proud of having sex with the man she loves, regardless of it being premarital sex, and standing up to the headmistress.
Ginger Rogers was fun and charming as Pony, a girl from the same rich background, but who refuses to be held back by the rules on vices. She tells Virginia that the school doesn't really care about what the girls do, only that they don't get caught. So the school is harder on Virginia not because she went out with a man, but because he dropped her off at school, being seen with him. Rogers was on her way up as a star, and I like that the film depicts a caring friendship between the girls that is more sympathetic, and not demonizing Pony as a bad influence that would get punished in a Hayes Code-era movie.
I recognized Theresa Harris, a Black actress of the 1930s who had an uncredited role as Mrs. Radcliff's servant, because I had also seen her in 1933's Baby Face, another Pre-Code movie, where she played a close friend of Barbara Stanwyck's character, and is treated as an equal friend and not as a servant in the film. Due to Hollywood racism of the era, she wasn't given the right roles to shine in, but she was a lovely actress who stood out as a charismatic beauty.
One of my favorite actors in the movie was Anne Shirley as this dorky, enthusiastic girl named Billie, who keeps trying to be Pony's friend, only for Pony to see her as an annoying nuisance and shutting her out. She was just this adorable kid, and looking her up, I realize that I had seen her in 1932's Three on a Match, as the younger version of Ann Dvorak's character. Shirley was credited as Dawn O'Day back then, with her real name being Dawn Paris. She was best-known for starring in Anne of Green Gables in 1934, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Stella Dallas in 1937, before she left the industry at age 26 in 1944.
Wanda Tuchock wrote for over 30 films, directed three, and produced one. She was one of the few women to be credited as a director on a Hollywood film, next to Dorothy Arzner and Dorothy Davenport. She also co-wrote Hallelujah (1929), directed by King Vidor, and being one of the first Hollywood films with an all-Black cast, including Nina Mae McKinney and Daniel L. Haynes.
I really enjoyed watching this movie. It's short at just 73 minutes, and packs a lot of story in, and is fun to watch.
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