Shopworn (1932)
Genre: Drama/Romance
Director: Nicholas Grinde
Writers: Jo Swerling and Robert Riskin
Producers: Harry Cohn
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck as Kitty Lane, Regis Toomey, Zasu Pitts
Release Date: 25 March 1932
Synopsis: A waitress falls for a wealthy young man but has to fight his mother to find happiness.
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Ray’s Review
Barbara stayed at Columbia for her next film, she needn’t have bothered, Shopworn was a second rate programmer that brought little or no credit to anyone involved in it.
It is a very contrived soap opera about a small-town waitress who eventually and unbelievably, finds fame as an actress.
She is romanced by a medical student, the uncharismatic Regis Toomey, who even at 30 years old looked middle aged, he certainly wasn’t leading man material and it wasn’t long before he became a busy character actor. The medical student becomes a surgeon, but before the inevitable happy ending Barbara has to put up with his jealous, possessive mother, played by Clara Blandick, (Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz).
I rarely watch this dreary sudser, but her next film was definitely a step up in the right direction.