Ladies of Leisure (1930) on Netflix
Kay Arnold, a self-described party girl, escapes a yacht party and accepts a ride from Jerry Strong. He is a wealthy aspiring artist who asks her to model for a painting.
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- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.7/102,021 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
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Plot summary
Kay Arnold drifts through New York City parties, hoping to catch a rich suitor. Jerry Strong, an aspiring painter from a wealthy family, slips away from a party his friend Bill Standish is holding at his penthouse studio. Driving in the country, he meets Kay, who is escaping a party aboard a yacht, and drives her back toward the city. He offers her work as the model for a painting he calls Hope. In their first session he wipes off her makeup, trying to bring out her true nature. Standish, who drinks heavily, invites her on a cruise to Havana, and she turns him down. As she sits for Jerry, Kay falls in love with him and begins to regret her past.
Cast
- Edith Ellisonas Jerry's Housekeeper (uncredited)
Show all 13 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ladies of Leisure (1930)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Barbara Stanwyck's first meeting with Frank Capra about Ladies of Leisure went badly, as he had another actress in mind for Kay. Her husband, actor Frank Fay, phoned Capra to complain, then urged him to watch her film test for The Noose; Capra was so impressed he pushed Harry Cohn to sign her.
- Screenwriter Jo Swerling called the source material "a putrid piece of gorgonzola" and "incredibly dull", then locked himself in a hotel room for five days and pounded out a rewrite, fueled by black coffee, sandwiches and brief snatches of sleep.
- Barbara Stanwyck gave her all on the first take and later rehearsals and retakes were pale copies, so Frank Capra rehearsed the rest of the cast without her; the actors grumbled, saying they had never heard of an actress not rehearsing.
- Frank Capra was sure the film would win Academy Award nominations for himself and Barbara Stanwyck, and when it got none he and Columbia head Harry Cohn sent angry letters to the Academy. Capra then joined the Academy, campaigned for its board of governors and was elected to a three-year term.
- Ladies of Leisure, begun under the working title Ladies of the Evening, was Frank Capra's fifth sound film and the first project over which Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn gave him complete creative control.
