Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35790 in VHS
• Released on: 1998-09-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 85 minutes

Customer Reviews

A Lesson In Love
SHOPWORN ANGEL is a movie about a worldly Broadway actress (Margaret Sullivan) who meets a doughboy (Jimmy Stewart) just before he leaves for France. Stewart is a naive cowboy from Texas who brags to his army buddies that he knows Sullivan. When they actually do meet Stewart immediately falls in love with her. The only complication is that Sullivan really loves her business manager Walter Pigeon. This awkward situation forces both Sullivan and Pigeon to look deeper and learn new truths about life and love.

Margaret Sullivan is superb as her character changes visibly from a spoiled and egotistical mess into a warm and giving adult. Stewart, Pigeon and Hattie McDaniel give their usual strong performances mostly playing themselves. Sullivan's singing is dubbed by Mary Martin.

H.C. Potter also directed MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE, HELLZAPOPPIN and THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE.

DAISY HEATH
In THE SHOPWORN ANGEL, the image of folksy Jimmy Stewart was solidified. His Bill Pettigrew is the all-American innocent, slightly fumbling of manner and drawling of speech; in fact the most effective moments of the movie centers around apple pie! There was a certain chemistry between Sullavan and Stewart that's rather elusive; perhaps it was the result of their own friendship and understanding of each other. Sullavan had a wistful and appealing aura and the ability to show the feminine side of a woman; vulnerability was Maggie's forte. The setting is New York in 1917 just after America's entry into the World War, when a rather glib actress - Daisy Heath - (Sullavan), almost knocks over a young soldier, Bill Pettigrew (Stewart). Daisy finds this young farmer from Texas refreshingly different from any man she's ever known...............The sentiment nature of Dana Burnett's novel, PRIVATE PETTIGREW'S GIRL needed a lot of shoring up for 1938 audiences (it was filmed priorly in 1928 with Gary Cooper and Nancy Carroll). It's the authority of the two lead performances which make this film bearable; Sullavan invested her scenes with an eloquence of expression and Stewart made his characterization solid, even though the script gave him little to work with.

w-w-w-well howdy, mam
Interesting variation on the small-town-boy-comes-to-the-city theme, with Jimmy Stewert as the noble-hearted hick falling in love with a girl from New York who's been round the block a few times, but to whose dalliances he remains impervious. My favourite scene is where Jimmy is told how the cattle are rounded up in Times Square. Let down only by a slightly sentimental ending.