PRIMROSE PATH (1940)

Twenty-nine year-old teenager Ginger Rogers has a family ain't nobody jealous of.  Her mom's a hooker with a good heart, her grandma's a hooker with a heart made of fossilized rat poison, her little sister is a hooker in-training and her dad's a pants-shitting drunkard.  She lives in a rundown shack with her shitty family and she doesn't go to school since nobody makes her.  One day she decides to get some crabs (the crustacean kind) for her shitfaced dad, so she hitches a ride down to the beach from a kindly old man who offers her some free food at his hamburger stand.  The cook (McCrea) takes a liking to her and she (secretly) to him.  Things happen and they hook up, but she lied about her family.  What's gonna happen when he finds out the truth?

Ginger Rogers ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for the same years KITTY FOYLE directed by Frank Capra, but according to Joel McCrea: "I think they really gave it to her for PRIMROSE PATH but they were afraid of the subject matter in those days.  Even Frank Capra said it was a better film than KITTY FOYLE."  That's very interesting.  I haven't seen KITTY FOYLE, but I was surprised at Rogers outstanding performance in PRIMROSE PATH especially when you compare it to her terrible performance in 1942's ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON.  It's asking a lot of an 29-year-old actress to play a teenager in a serious role, but Rogers pulls it off.  Yeah, she looks too old, but her portrayal all the way down to the smallest mannerisms was spot on.  Very impressive.  The story on the other hand is interesting, but there wasn't enough tension and the abrupt ending was completely unsatisfying. 

Worth a watch for fans of McCrea and Rogers, but overall I was hoping for better.