Other Titles • Lady for a Day (1933) • Beggar's Holiday • Madame la Gimp
Synopses for Lady for a Day (1933)
1.
Based on a story by Damon Runyon, this Frank Capra film was nominated for several Oscars® after it was released in 1933 (it was remade by Capra as Pocketful of Miracles in 1961). A tenderhearted Depression-era comedy, it tells the story of Apple Annie (May Robson), a panhandling street vendor who has kept her real identity hidden from a daughter being reared in Europe. When the grown-up daughter comes to New York for a visit, Annie turns to gambler Dave the Dude (Warren William) for help. He transforms her--temporarily--into a high-society grande dame, but not without complications. The film is nearly stolen by Guy Kibbee, as a judge posing as Annie's husband, but Warren William, a John Barrymore lookalike, and dour Ned Sparks get laughs too. --Marshall Fine
2.
Story of a soft-hearted gangster who organizes his entire gang of thugs to help transform an elderly, rather seedy apple vendor into a perfect society lady. This treatment of a Damon Runyon story was, next to "It's a Wonderful Life," Capra's favorite among his own films. Academy Award Nominations: 4, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress--May Robson and Best Adapted Screenplay.
3.
Takes its places among the greatest pictures ever made!
A Cinderella fairy tale set in the early 1930s, Lady for a Day is a delightfully charming mix of drama and comedy that earned four Academy Award nominations and propelled Frank Capra to the top ranks of popular filmmakers. This was Capra's first major success, establishing the model for the "Capra-esque" films that followed and his first collaboration with legendary screenwriter Robert Riskin, a partnership that produced such Oscar-winning classics as It Happened One Night, Mr. Dees Goes To Town and You Can't Take It With You.
Apple Annie, a cantankerous New York City fruit peddler, has been pretending that she's a high-society matron in letters to her grown daughter now living overseas. When her daughter and aristocratic fiance plan to visit, Annie panics and turns to her best customer, Dave the Dude, a racketeering gangster. Dave and his cronies hilariously transform Annie into the grandest of dames and cast themselves as her entourage! Based on Damon Runyon's (Guys and Dolls) short story "madame La Gimp," Lady For A Day is "a twentieth century fairy tale…and a really great movie" (The Hollywood Reporter)! Frank Capra would revisit this story as the remake, A Pocketful of Miracles (1961), his final film.
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