Maisie Was a Lady (DVD)

Look who's rubbing elbows with the New York upper crust. It's sometime showgirl and carny sideshow attraction Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothern, playing the brassy screen heroine for the fourth time), earning her daily bread as a maid at the posh Rawlston estate on Long Island. There, she finds that the Rawlston patriarch is a neglectful and absentee parent, the fragile daughter (Maureen O'Sullivan) is engaged to a fortune hunter, and the son (Lew Ayres) is an indulgent layabout (but he is kind of handsome). Maisie may be out of her milieu at the Rawlston manor, but she is in her element when it comes to confronting the shams, pretensions and wrongs she finds there. C. Aubrey Smith joins the fun as the ever-dutiful Rawlston butler. Later during the same year of Maisie Was a Lady's release, Sothern, O'Sullivan and Ayres reunited for a radio version.

• comedy