Funny comedy based on the real-life adventures of Ruth McKenney and he sister Eileen when they lived in a very Bohemian Greenwich Village in the 1930s.
The film is a sanitized version of the Broadway play which starred Shirley Booth. The film has Rosalind Russell starring as Ruth and Janet Blair as the naive Eileen as they try to make it in the big city. As Russell tries to crash the New York magazines with her stories, Blair attracts trouble and men.
The film features Brian Aherne as an editor, Allyn Joslyn as a leering reporter, Gordon Jones as Wreck, George Tobias as the landlord, Grant Mitchell as the girls' father, Elizabeth Patterson as their grandmother, June Havoc as Effie the fortune teller (a prostitute in the play), Chick Chandler as Effie's customer, Richard Quine as the soda jerk, Arnold Stang as the copy boy, Jeff Donnell as the annoying upstairs wife, and Donald MacBride as the cop on the beat.
Other familiar faces in smaller roles include Forrest Tucker, Frank Sully, Ann Doran, Charles Halton, Lewis Howard, Phyllis Kennedy, Bert Roach, and the Three Stooges in a cameo.
Rosalind Russell steals every scene she's in and gives a masterful and hilarious performance as the "dowdy" Ruth. She boasts a hair-do that looks like the front end of a Chrysler and plows through the comedy as if it were whipped cream. She's simply marvelous and won the first of her four Oscar nominations.
After brilliant comedic turns in films like THE WOMEN and HIS GIRL FRIDAY, MY SISTER EILEEN, which was a huge hit for Columbia Pictures, cemented Russell's place among the screen's top comediennes of the era with Carole Lombard, Marion Davies, Jean Arthur, Irene Dunne, Lucille Ball, and Claudette Colbert.
Not to be missed.
The film is a sanitized version of the Broadway play which starred Shirley Booth. The film has Rosalind Russell starring as Ruth and Janet Blair as the naive Eileen as they try to make it in the big city. As Russell tries to crash the New York magazines with her stories, Blair attracts trouble and men.
The film features Brian Aherne as an editor, Allyn Joslyn as a leering reporter, Gordon Jones as Wreck, George Tobias as the landlord, Grant Mitchell as the girls' father, Elizabeth Patterson as their grandmother, June Havoc as Effie the fortune teller (a prostitute in the play), Chick Chandler as Effie's customer, Richard Quine as the soda jerk, Arnold Stang as the copy boy, Jeff Donnell as the annoying upstairs wife, and Donald MacBride as the cop on the beat.
Other familiar faces in smaller roles include Forrest Tucker, Frank Sully, Ann Doran, Charles Halton, Lewis Howard, Phyllis Kennedy, Bert Roach, and the Three Stooges in a cameo.
Rosalind Russell steals every scene she's in and gives a masterful and hilarious performance as the "dowdy" Ruth. She boasts a hair-do that looks like the front end of a Chrysler and plows through the comedy as if it were whipped cream. She's simply marvelous and won the first of her four Oscar nominations.
After brilliant comedic turns in films like THE WOMEN and HIS GIRL FRIDAY, MY SISTER EILEEN, which was a huge hit for Columbia Pictures, cemented Russell's place among the screen's top comediennes of the era with Carole Lombard, Marion Davies, Jean Arthur, Irene Dunne, Lucille Ball, and Claudette Colbert.
Not to be missed.