Stage Door (1937) |
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Stage Door Cast |
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Movie Highlights |
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Other InformationAwardsBest Writing, Screenplay Academy Awards [1938] (Won/Nominated: Nominated) Best Picture Academy Awards [1938] (Won/Nominated: Nominated) Best Director Academy Awards [1938] (Won/Nominated: Nominated) Best Actress in a Supporting Role Academy Awards [1938] (Won/Nominated: Nominated) Best Director New York Film Critics Circle Awards [1937] (Won/Nominated: Won) Plot SummaryAdapted from the Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman play, Stage Door is a comedic portrait of the theatrical community in New York. Katharine Hepburn stars as Terry Randall a young woman who comes from a wealthy, socially connected family. Aspiring fo... TaglineGREAT STARS! GREAT STORY! GREAT PICTURE! (original print ad - all caps) The gaiety...glamour...foolishness and fun of showbusiness...played on the Great White Way Brilliant In Cast And Story DiscographySinglesPut Your Heart Into Your Feet and Dance |
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Full Cast and Crew |
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Actor CreditsNon Actor Credits |
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Fans |
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Stage Door has no fans yet!
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Trivia |
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Trivia and QuotesQuotes Jean Maitland: [crassly screaming from the bottom of the stairs] OH, LINDA!
Linda Shaw: [coming down the stairs] Maybe if you spoke a little LOUDER next time, everyone in the whole HOUSE could hear you.
Jean Maitland: [sarcastically] Oh, I`m sorry, I forget that you`re old and deaf.
Jean Maitland: [to Linda Shaw as she is leaving for a dinner date] Don`t chew the bones and give yourself away!
Bill: One of the best press campaigns...
[Offers Jean cigaret]
Jean Maitland: No thanks. Gave it up when I was seven.
Bill: Bright girl. Busy tonight?
Jean Maitland: Yes.
[Following routine lines omitted]
Bill: Well, you haven`t given up eating, have you?
Jean Maitland: It isn`t that. It`s - just that I think we hadn`t better see each other for a while.
Bill: Why?
Jean Maitland: I just think it`s better, that`s all.
Bill: [long pause] O-h-h-h.
Jean Maitland: Why do you say "o-h-h-h" like that?
Bill: Well, how would you say it?
Jean Maitland: You make it sound like it meant something else.
Bill: Well, does it?
Jean Maitland: Whatever I do is my own business.
Annie: Are you coming or aren`t you?
Jean Maitland: Oh shut up.
Bill: Did you eat something sour for lunch today?
Eve: A pleasant little foursome. I predict a hatchet murder before the night`s over.
Terry Randall: [With a superior air, leaving the crowded living room of girls after many snappy wisecracks and lively banter among the group] It`d be a terrific innovation if you could get your minds stretched a little further than the next wisecrack.
Jean Maitland: Hey, that`s a kind of good-lookin` piece of jackrabbit you got there.
Linda Shaw: Oh, it`s just a little trinket my "Aunt Susan" sent over.
Jean Maitland: Say, I think it`s very unselfish of those little animals to give up their lives to keep other animals warm.
Linda Shaw: You know, they`re very smart little animals. They never give up their lives for the wrong people.
Jean Maitland: Well, you understand the rodent family much better than I do.
Jean Maitland: Do you mind if I ask a personal question?
Terry Randall: Another one?
Jean Maitland: Are these trunks full of bodies?
Terry Randall: Just those, but I don`t intend to unpack them.
Linda Shaw: If you were a little more considerate of your elders, maybe Mr. Powell would send his car for you someday. Of course, he would probably take one look at you and send you right back again, but then you have to expect that.
Jean Maitland: Is that so?
Linda Shaw: Do you know, I think I could fix you up with Mr. Powell`s chauffeur. The chauffeur has a very nice car too.
Jean Maitland: Yes, but I understand Mr. Powell`s chauffeur doesn`t go as far in his car as Mr. Powell does.
Linda Shaw: Even a chauffer has to have an incentive!
Jean Maitland: Well, you should know!
Terry Randall: [entering the boarding house after trying the wrong door] How many doors are there to this place?
Jean Maitland: Well, there`s the trap door, the humidor, and the cuspidor. How many doors would you like?
Judy Canfield: Do you want a date?
Jean Maitland: To some other lumberman?
Judy Canfield: Am I supposed to apologize for being born in Seattle?
Jean Maitland: Well, the last couple we went stepping with were made of lumber. Especially their feet.
Judy Canfield: All right, all right, you can stay here and gorge yourself on lamb stew again.
Jean Maitland: When I get back to my room, you`re the only thing I want to find missing.
Jean Maitland: We started off on the wrong foot. Let`s stay that way.
Terry Randall: I see that, in addition to your other charms, you have that insolence generated by an inferior upbringing.
Jean Maitland: Hmm! Fancy clothes, fancy language and everything!
Terry Randall: Unfortunately, I learned to speak English correctly.
Jean Maitland: That won`t be of much use to you here. We all talk pig latin.
Terry Randall: [giving her curtain speech at the end of a trimphant opening night performance of the play within the movie] The person you should be applauding died a few hours ago. I hope that wherever she is, she knows and understands and forgives.
Terry Randall: [delivering her opening speech in the play within the movie] The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower, suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.
Eve: [after a dinner where Terry Randall has evidently spoken very eloquently about Shakespeare] Well, I don`t like to gossip, but that new gal seems to have an awful crush on Shakespeare!
Susan: [jokingly] I wouldn`t be surprised if they get married!
Mary Lou: [with genuine naiveté] Oh, you`re foolin`! Shakespeare`s dead!
Susan: [Feigning surprise, playing along to entertain the others] No!
Mary Lou: Well, if he`s the same one that wrote "Hamlet", he is!
Eve: [playing along, too] Never heard of it.
Mary Lou: Well, certainly you must have heard of "Hamlet"!
Eve: Well, I meet so many people.
Jean Maitland: Hey, you`re not gonna catch the opening tonight, huh?
Eve: No, I`m going tomorrow and catch the closing.
Trivia Katharine Hepburn was in discussions to star in the original Broadway stage production of "Stage Door", but Broadway producer Leland Hayward, reportedly jealous of her deepening friendship with noted film director John Ford, cast his then-girlfriend Margaret Sullavan in the leading role. Hayward and Sullavan married one month after the stage play opened. Margaret Sullavan was considered for the film version but became pregnant with their first child, and the part went to Katharine Hepburn. Adolphe Menjou`s character was not in the original stage play
Incredibly, Ann Miller was only 14 years old when she appeared in this film. She had lied about her age and procured a fake birth certificate, but the precocious Miller was so tall and beautiful at age 14 that she pulled it off. With this knowledge, today it is quite impressive to see her holding her own while dancing with Ginger Rogers, by then an international star as the dance partner of Fred Astaire,
# George S. Kaufman, upset and bemused by the way the screenwriters had substantially changed the play, suggested that the title also be changed, to "Screen Door".
Lucille Ball always called this movie her big break. #
# In an interview in "Hollywood the Golden Years: The RKO Story" (1987), Katharine Hepburn relates that she was upset that she was given the diminished role of a character that she felt was pointless to the script. Hepburn asked director Gregory La Cava what was the essential point of her character. He responded "She is the human question mark." She then asked what that meant, and he replied "____ damned if I know!" #
# Katharine Hepburn`s box office power had been declining and was given a smaller part than she was accustomed, and initially she was to receive second billing under Ginger Rogers. Hepburn protested to RKO producer Pandro S. Berman, who told Hepburn "she was lucky to have the 7th role in a star picture". Hepburn persisted and was giving more scenes as filming progressed, and she and Ginger Rogers eventually shared side-by-side top billing.
The famous line delivered by Katharine Hepburn ("The calla lilies are in bloom again...") is actually dialog taken from the play "The Lake", which Hepburn infamously played on Broadway (Dorothy Parker famously said that Hepburn "ran the gamut of emotions - from A to B."). The screenplay was considerably altered from the hit stage play. Director Gregory La Cava was particularly gifted working with actresses. For two weeks prior to filming, he had his cast improvise in the boarding house set as if they were actually rooming together, and had a script girl take down all their interchanges. Most of the dialog you hear in the boarding house is extemporaneous ad-libs by the actresses during rehearsals. The "Footlights Club," the theatrical boarding house where most of the film takes place, was based on a real establishment in New York City called the Three Arts Club (the three arts were acting, singing and dancing), founded by the mother of record producer John Hammond to give young women seeking careers in show business a wholesome living environment and protect them from sexually predatory men (as the film`s plot indicates, it didn`t always achieve the latter!). The stage version of "Stage Door", written by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, opened at the Music Box Theater in New York on October 22, 1936 and ran for 169 performances. In addition to Margaret Sullavan in the leading role, the supporting cast included Tom Ewell and Mary Wickes. | ||
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