Ladies of the Chorus

Tonight's lineup on TCM includes a movie that only gets seen because of the presence of a very young Marilyn Monroe: Ladies of the Chorus, at 11:00 PM.

Monroe plays Peggy Martin, one of the chorus girls who is the daughter of Mae Martin (Adele Jergens, nominally the star here). Mae was at one point the star of the show, but she aged out of stardom and is back in the chorus, not having married well. An argument ensues that sees the star of the show leave in a huff, and Peggy getting named to be the new star.

Coming into the club one night is Randy Carroll (Rand Brooks), one of those playboys who dotted movies of the 1930s but seems like time has passed him by now that it's 1948 -- times were changing fast after World War II. But Randy sees Peggy in the show, and immediately falls in love. Of course, there's a problem in that Peggy is just a showgirl, and Mom tells her that the likelihood of it working out is low.

However, Randy still loves Peggy and plans to introduce her to his mother, oddly enough named Adele (Nana Bryant). Eventually the time comes for Peggy to be introduced to all of high society, and that's where you'd expect the problem once all the other "good" rich people find out Peggy was a show girl. But Mrs. Carroll has something to say about that.

There's not much in this 61-minute B movie from Columbia. In fact, as I watched it, I found myself thinking that this is the sort of movie that a decade earlier would have made a nice two-reeler for one of the studios. There's the bare bones of a story; Peggy can do one production number at the club; and then there would be the big production number wrapping things up as Peggy and Randy get to live happily ever after. But with shorts becoming less of a thing after World War II, Columbia stretched it out to that hour.

It's not exactly a bad movie; it's more that Ladies of the Chorus is a movie that came at the wrong time. And if Marilyn Monroe hadn't gone on to bigger things, nobody would remember this movie, much like all the other B movies that aren't part of the Turner library.