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Rating:  - Heart Rending Depiction of Class and Gender
"Kitty Foyle" is a provocative depiction of class and gender politics during the era preceding World War II in America. The film bluntly displays how your happiness could be impeded by your station in life and if you are a woman it's that much harder. There are no real villains in the piece other than the archaic mores set down for generations. Interesting, though based on a novel by Christopher Morley, the script was adapted by Dalton Trumbo who would later be blacklisted. Ginger Rogers, in a performance of great strength and nuance, more than earned her Oscar for her work here. Those who would dismiss her as Fred Astaire's dance partner should check out her work in films like "42nd Street" and "Stage Door".
Rating:  - "i'm free, white, and 21 ..."
a fascinating curiosity today, as a glance into what constituted a "modern woman" in pre-ww2 america. ginger rogers in her best-remembered non-musical role is a wrong side of the tracks good girl who is wrongly used by a wealthy but weak-willed guy. interestingly, HIS view of romance is more in jive with todays world. and the casual off-the-cuff racial bigotry displayed by ginger serves to make her seem all the more petty. all the secondary characters are poorly written, but the snappiness of rogers' performance still holds up.
Rating:  - movie reviews crossed: kitty foyle & johnny belinda
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential video
After initially rejecting the role as too sentimental, Ginger Rogers found the title character of Kitty Foyle to be an Oscar winner and a career breakthrough. Released in 1940, only a year after her nine-picture partnership with Fred Astaire ended, Kitty Foyle helped establish Rogers as a nonmusical box-office star. The film portrays a white-collar working girl who receives a warm and welcome marriage proposal from Mark (James Craig), a kindly but humble doctor. As soon as she accepts, however, she receives a different proposition, this one from her former love, wealthy socialite Wyn (Dennis Morgan), who plans to flee his life and his wife and asks Kitty to join him and live in unwedded bliss in South America. Kitty then recounts her life in flashback to help her choose which man to love. Rogers gives an appealing performance as the feisty yet vulnerable Kitty, who makes up in moxie what she lacks in social status. Did she really deserve the Best Actress Oscar over Bette Davis in The Letter, Joan Fontaine in Rebecca, Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story, and Martha Scott in Our Town? Well, evidently Rogers had real-life moxie too. --David Horiuchi
Product Description
Known for light comedies and her partnership with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers stepped off the dance floor and into 1940's Oscar spotlight with her Best Actress turn as Kitty, an indomitable working-class girl who endures the rejection of Philadelphia society, makes her own way as a single woman and ultimately chooses between an unmarried arrangement with Main Line scion Wynnewood Strafford VI (Dennis Morgan) or marriage to a struggling physician (James Craig). Rogers' deserved Academy Award confirmed she was more than a dance star - a fact humorously underscored when she returned to the studio and was greeted by staffers and actors in top hats and tails. Jane Wyman won the Best Actress Academy Award for her sensitive portrayal of Belinda, capturing the girl's affecting isolation, awakening desire to learn and ultimate triumph. Directed by Jean Negulesco and co-starring Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford and Agnes Moorehead (all four Oscar nominees* for their fine work), Johnny Belinda (nominated for a total 11 Oscars including Best Picture) blends atmosphere, nuance and high drama into a heartbreaking classic
Rating:  - The Mystery Goes On
I had heard all the hype about this film and Ginger's Oscar, but after several viewings, I still find the film rather flat as an experience, and Ginger's Oscar is still a mystery. I guess it proves the adage about winning one "For women, play plain or ugly (remember Charlize Theron) or play against type"
Rating: - Ginger Rogers Shines
Ginger Rogers was very popular, both within the Hollywood community, and with the moviegoing public. With two strong performances in 1940, she took home the Oscar despite strong competition. Rogers perfectly captured the dilema of every American girl who worked for a living. Her portrayel of a young woman having to decide between a young woman's daydream of what love would be like and the real thing is flawless. Sam Wood directed this very entertaining film based on Christopher Morley's popular book.
Ginger is Kitty Foyle, a career girl from Philadelphia who falls for her boss, Wyn Strafford (Dennis Morgan), in what she thinks is everything she's dreamed about all her life. Wood used a snowglobe as a transitional device to Kitty's flashbacks of their romance, just as George Stevens had used a phonograph in Penny Serenade the previous year. Kitty and Wyn are no longer together, their brief marriage ending in divorce when it finally becomes clear to Kitty that her Irish American moxie can not overcome Wyn's old-money family in their Darby Mill--Griscom Street romance.
Kitty has moved on and has a chance for something real with a young but poor doctor portrayed by James Craig. But it is a down to earth and more practical love, and when Wyn suddenly appears to take her away once more, but not as his wife, she must decide which path to choose. As she packs to run away with Wyn, she argues with her conscience and remembers.
Ernest Cossart is very good as Kitty's pop, trying to steer her in the right direction. He may have been born four drinks below par, as Kitty affectionately teases him, but he is wise enough to see Wyn's weak character, which will never allow him to break from his society family and make a real life with his daughter. Kitty will face two tragedies simultaneously in this warm and sentimental story of an American working girl trying to have it all.
Rogers did deserve the Oscar because she is everything in this film. She may have been the only actress around who could have so readily been accepted to represent an entire generation of young women during the 1940's. They viewed her as one of their own, even though the glamour of Hollywood was part of her story as well. She was the American girl made good, and her performance here is flawless.
A fine ending showed not only Kitty's Irish American moxie, but her growth and maturity as well. This is a fine film with a terrific performance from Ginger Rogers that is very much a product of the era it was made. A fine score from Roy Webb adds to this gentle story of letting the dream of love go in favor of the real thing. A must own for Ginger's fans and a good one for film buffs to add to their collection.
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