MAISIE GETS HER MAN

US, 1942, 86 minutes, Black and white.
Ann Sothern, Red Skelton, Leo Gorcey, Allen Jenkins, Donald Meek, Lloyd Corrigan, Walter Catlett, Fritz Feld, Rags Ragland.
Directed by Roy Del Ruth.

Maisie Gets Her Man is the sixth Maisie film in a series of ten, beginning in 1939 and ending in 1947.

While the character remains the same, there is very little continuity between the films.

This time Maisie is performing on stage with a knife-thrower who goes into a tantrum (Fritz Feld). Out of a job, she encounters Pappy Goodring (Allen Jenkins, so prominent in many of the Warner Bros films of the 1930s). She gets a job persuading people to rent apartments. One of those who does is Mr Denningham, played by Lloyd Corrigan. He is helpful to her – and especially when she goes to an agent, with Herbert Hixby, played by Red Skelton. He is a corny comic, trying his best – who pals up with Maisie. When eventually they get a chance to perform, he gets stage fright, is awkward and is booed from the stage. She stands by him. However, a fiancé from the past turns up and Maisie is disappointed and goes travelling with a performing show.

The development in the plot is that in Georgia, she discovers Mr Denningham and realises that he is a fraud, organises his arrest. She goes to entertain the troops – and there is Hap Hixby and they are happily reunited.

The film depends on the verve of Ann Sothern. It is also an early Red Skelton film, giving him the opportunity to clown. The reliable supporting cast has been in many films at Warner Bros and MGM.

The film is notable only as a star vehicle for Ann Sothern and Red Skelton.