Primrose Path (1940) Reviews

In her third film for innovative director Gregory LaCava, Ginger Rogers briefly turns her back on her established screen image by playing the daughter and granddaughter of prostitutes. Determined not to pursue the "family business", Ellie May Adams (Rogers) opts for respectability, as personified by clean-limbed Ed Wallace (Joel McCrea, teamed with Rogers for the first time since 1933's Chance at Heaven). Alas, all of Ellie May's dreams of connubial bliss fly out the window when Ed is introduced to her alcoholic father Homer (Miles Mander), her round-heeled mother Mamie (Marjorie Rambeau) and her equally randy grandmother (Queenie Vassar). Briefly losing Ed's affections, Ellie May tearfully resigns herself to taking care of her family-but will she resort to the World's Oldest Profession to keep food on the table? Adapted from Victoria Lincoln's novel February Hill (Lincoln's name didn't appear on the credits due to legal entanglements), Primrose Path managed to retain a goodly portion of the novel's bite without unduly straining RKO Radio's relationship with Joe Breen's censorship office. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi