Mannequin (1937)

Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and directed by Frank Borzage and starring Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracy but don’t let that fool you into thinking this might be anything special. The film starts off promisingly and the first ten minutes or so have a feel for tenement life but after that it’s just another mawkish Crawford shopgirl romance and she’s a doormat to a loser (Alan Curtis and superbly slimy) of a freeloading husband. Individually, Crawford and Tracy are pretty good and hold the screen as befits their star presences despite the tired clichés of the script but they have zero chemistry together. With Elisabeth Risdon (who has one beautifully played scene) as Crawford’s mother, Leo Gorcey as her brother, Mary Philips and Ralph Morgan.