Maisie films

Identification Popular series of ten B-films starring Ann Sothern as a good-hearted entertainer.

Date Released from 1939 to 1947

The upbeat Maisie films—all but one of which were made during the 1940’s—were a reflection of two sentiments in the American filmgoing public: the “can do” attitude prevalent in the immediate prewar years during the final recovery from the Great Depression, and the home front’s wish to be able to forget the war, if only for a brief time.

The year 1939 saw the release of some of the most memorable films of all time, nearly all of them designed for sheer entertainment value. Among the more modest films produced at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) that year was Maisie, starring vivacious blond Ann Sothern. The film had originally been set to star Jean Harlow, but after she died in 1937 it was scaled down to bottom-of-the-bill fare. Nevertheless, the film surprisingly proved to be a major success, earning back many times its cost, and Sothern was given a long-term contract by the studio.

Born Harriette Lake, Sothern had labored among the ranks of female B-film actors for many years before getting her break at one of the premier Hollywood studios. The Maisie films featured her as a rather brassy but spunky and good-hearted chorus girl named Maisie Ravier (also spelled “Revere”). During the ten-film series, she did everything from solving murders and foiling dastardly plots to working at various jobs that included gold mining and stints at a defense plant, as a secretary, and even as the target in a knife-throwing act.

Extensive travel apparently was required of the average chorus girl, because Maisie found herself traveling widely both at home and abroad. Wherever she landed, it was a hallmark of her character that she ultimately succeeded at everything she tried, and often helped to straighten out other people’s lives as well. She frequently performed musical numbers to validate her talents.

Sothern’s real-life talent as a singer enabled her to be cast in occasional MGM musicals, including Lady Be Good (1941), Panama Hattie (1942), Words and Music (1948), and Nancy Goes to Rio (1950). She stated that getting roles in a few A-films was her reward for continuing as Maisie, although she actually may not have had much choice in the matter. As long as the series remained profitable, MGM would continue it.

Following the original film, the others in the series were Congo Maisie (1940), Gold Rush Maisie (1940), Maisie Was a Lady (1941), Ringside Maisie (costarring actor Robert Sterling, whom Sothern later married), Maisie Gets Her Man (1942), Swing Shift Maisie (1943), Maisie Goes to Reno (1944), Up Goes Maisie (1946), and finally Undercover Maisie (1947).

Impact

Portraying Maisie may have been detrimental to Ann Sothern’s long-term career. She largely remained typecast as a brassy peroxide blond at MGM. That she was a fine actor as well was revealed in such films as Cry “Havoc” (1943), A Letter to Three Wives (1949), and The Blue Gardenia (1953). In later years, she played supporting roles in Lady in a Cage (1964), The Best Man (1964), and The Whales of August (1987), for which she received her only Oscar nomination. Sothern also successfully transitioned into television, starring in Private Secretary from 1953 to 1957 and then in The Ann Sothern Show from 1958 to 1961, winning a Golden Globe Award in 1959.

The Maisie series was very much a product of the 1940’s. It fulfilled its mission of pure, if unrealistic, entertainment, helping wartime audiences to escape bad news for a bit more than an hour or so. Reflecting the heightened roles of women during World War II, it was one of the rare cinema feature series to star a strong, self-reliant woman.

Bibliography

Basinger, Jeanine. “The Lady Who Was Maisie: Ann Sothern.” Film Comment 35, no. 6 (1999): 24-35.

Schultz, Margie. Ann Sothern: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Scarecrow, 1990.