Our Blushing Brides

Three girls, three guys, three roads to happiness -- and perhaps not all of those roads lead there. A trio of Depression-era shopgirls deals with big-city life and also yearns for Mr. Right (or Mr. Right Now!) in Our Blushing Brides, a film that joins earlier trendsetters Our Dancing Daughters and Our Modern Maidens to form the trilogy of Joan Crawford movies that define the passions and plights of jazz-baby youth. Chief among the blushing bevy, of course, is above-the-title, Crawford as Jerry, who insists that her suitor (Robert Montgomery) put a ring on her finger before any intimate coziness. Meanwhile, Anita Page (Crawford's costar in all three films) falls for a sweet-talking Lothario. And Dorothy Sebastian (a costar in the first film) is bedazzled by a rogue's ready flash of $100 bills. Among other highlights of this engaging pre-Code talkie: the swirling tulle-and-satin fashion-show sequences.

• drama