Smartest Girl in Town
| Smartest Girl in Town | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Joseph Santley |
| Produced by | Edward Kaufman |
| Screenplay by | Viola Brothers Shore |
| Story by | Muriel Scheck H. S. Kraft |
| Starring |
Gene Raymond Ann Sothern |
| Music by | No credit listed. Musical director Nathaniel Shilkret |
| Cinematography | J. Roy Hunt, A.S.C. |
| Edited by | Jack Hively |
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Production
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| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. |
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Release date
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Running time
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58 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Smartest Girl in Town is a 1936 American comedy film directed by Joseph Santley and written by Viola Brothers Shore. The film stars Gene Raymond, Ann Sothern, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Erik Rhodes and Harry Jans. The film was released on November 27, 1936, by RKO Pictures.
Model "Cookie" Cooke (Ann Sothern) is urged by her unsatisfactorily married practical older sister Gwen (Helen Broderick) to find a wealthy husband. On a modeling assignment she runs into millionaire Dick Smith (Gene Raymond), but assumes him to be a low-earning male model. Dick falls in love with her, but she insists on dating eccentrically mannered Italian aristocrat Baron Enrico (Erik Rhodes). Dick installs another mannered character, his valet Philbean (Eric Blore) in the position of a casting agency president who would then pair Cookie on the same pre-arranged modeling jobs with Dick. Ultimately, Baron Enrico, who is so obsessed with birds that he cannot concentrate on romance long enough to propose, is goaded by Gwen into presenting Cookie with an engagement ring. Forced to act fast, Dick pretends to have attempted suicide by a gunshot to the head and asks Cookie to marry him on his deathbed, but she tastes the "ketchup blood" on his face and then embraces him.
RKO Pictures was also the studio which produced the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers series of films, thus Smartest Girl's comic supporting players, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore and Erik Rhodes, all had prominent roles in the previous year's Astaire-Rogers hit, Top Hat. Furthermore, two months before Smartest Girl's release, Blore and Broderick were seen in the dancing duo's very successful 1936 effort, Swing Time and, the previous year, had been in another RKO musical comedy, To Beat the Band. As for Blore and Rhodes, both had earlier appeared in the first Astaire-Rogers vehicle, 1934's The Gay Divorcee and also interacted as comedy relief in two other RKOs, the 1935 musical Old Man Rhythm and the 1936 murder mystery Two in the Dark.
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