the audience applauded

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

More dramatic than ever, this entry in the popular Ann Sothern series takes on the world of providing. Maybe hook up with boxing manager George Murphy who pushes his prize client Robert Sterling to the breaking point as he strives to win big money to help out Hus mother. Murphy's law isn't coddling his clients, and any attempts Sterling makes to get out of his contract is met with legal threats. It's up to Maisie to fix things, and like the good tenderhearted (if rough around the edges) angel she is, she takes it on with her usual verve.Supporting Sothern, Murphy and Sterling are Natalie Thompson as Sterling's not so loyal girlfriend and Margaret Moffatt as Sterling's wheelchair bound mother. A character actress I'd never heard of before, I was impressed with Miss Moffatt's acting, although I wanted her to give Murphy a huge slap when she gently called him over in a dramatic final scene.A particular delight is the presence of Virginia O'Brien in a nightclub sequence as herself, singing an if course deadpan version of "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" as only she can. It lightens up the seriousness of this entry, reminding me that just because Sothern's lighthearted image made this assumed to be a comedy series that she couldn't go dramatic every now and then.

As usual, Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothern) is broke and trying to get to her next job--but has no money. When she sneaks aboard a train, she is caught and deposited in the middle of no where. However, she soon meets up with an exceptionally nice prize fighter, Terry Dolan (Robert Sterling), and he helps her get on her feet. However, his manager (George Murphy) takes an almost instant dislike for Maisie, as he doesn't want any 'dames' distracting Dolan from becoming champion. In fact, they dislike each other so much that you KNOW they'll eventually fall for each other--a common old Hollywood cliché.As for Terry, although he is a great fighter, he is hiding a secret--a secret he eventually confides with Maisie. It seems that every time he goes into the ring, he's scared to death--scared that he'll hurt the other guy and afraid he'll end up punch-drunk after repeated blows to the head. This is a normal and healthy concern, but he wants to give up the fight business--even though he could become champion. Maisie advises him to tell his manager and quit--and this is sure to impact on her new romance with the manager. So what's to come of all this? Well, considering that Maisie was in ten films and this is only the fifth, you can pretty much assume she WON'T be getting married and settling down to a life of domesticity--at least not yet (even though it sure looks that way at the end)!I appreciated this film, as "Ringside Maisie" did NOT glamorize the fight business. Few other contemporary boxing films talked about the ugly side of it--the brain damage, detached retinas, the wear and tear and the fact that promoters and managers really couldn't care less about the boxers. And, the film did a wonderfully touching scene with Terry and one of his opponents, Jackie, at the hospital. Because of this, the film has a lot more depth than you'd expect from a boxing film or an installment of "Maisie". Because of this, it's one of the best films in the series and is well worth seeing--particularly if you have any family members who has aspirations of going into the ring.By the way, I thought it very strange that they billed Terry as a heavyweight, as he looked amazingly small and undeveloped for such a weight class (or to be a boxer at all). I know they had a lot fewer classes back then, but he sure looked like a middleweight to me--not that this seriously hampered the story.

Ann Sothern is Maisie again in "Ringside Maisie," a 1941 film also starring Robert Sterling and George Murphy. It's possible that this film is where Ms. Sothern met Sterling, her first husband.The Maisie plots had certain similarities and have to be taken as separate stories, which has always bothered me. It would seem at the end of one film that Maisie had found the man of her dreams, yet in the next film, there would be someone else. Maisie was always the same - a flashy, down in her luck entertainer on her way to a job somewhere, getting stranded, meeting some guy that she hates at first, and then love blooms.In this entry, the man is George Murphy as Francis, who handles gifted prize fighter Terry Dolan (Sterling). Maisie has a job performing and loses it the same night because she won't sleep with her partner (although obviously that isn't stated). She winds up being a companion to the boxer's mother. Over time, she learns that Dolan wants only to buy a grocery store - he hates fighting and is frightened every time he goes into the ring. With Maisie's encouragement, he confronts Francis, who is also a friend, only to have Francis demand he live up to his contract, with disastrous results.These movies were, for the most part, very entertaining. Sothern never did anything she didn't shine in, definitely one of the most likable actresses ever - beautiful, warm, funny, always convincing. When her leading woman days were over, she continued her career as a character actress. She was a wonderful star, even if she didn't reach the heights of Jean Harlow or Carole Lombard. She has good support here from the handsome Sterling and the versatile George Murphy.Good entry into the series.

Ann Sothern is delightful in her Maisie roles (and in virtually everything she did.) This is an especially charming entry in the series.It has a few small problems that can be attributed to its time. The flouncy desk clerk is one, but prissy, effeminate desk clerks were a staple of movies for a couple decades. (Alas.) In a way, the notion that prize fighter Robert Sterling would rather die than continue his life as a blind person is dated, too. But this movie is generally good with disabilities. People are still terrified of blindness, though more is known about it now; and the character of Sterling's mother is in a wheelchair and not treated in at all a condescending fashion.The idea that a smart, pretty, self-sufficient woman like Sothern's Maisie would chose the (to me) thoroughly unappealing George Murphy over the tender character played by the very handsome Robert Sterling is kind of laughable. And apparently the offscreen Sothern felt that way too, since she and Sterling were married two years after this picture's release.