January 18 movie: Finishing School. Another pre-code drama, this one stars Frances Dee as a new student at, you guessed it, a finishing school. It's a snooty place concerned not with providing a genuine education or building character in the students; just with appearances and the school's reputation.
Dee is dumped off at the school by her selfish, frivolous mother, Billie Burke (the most negative character I've ever seen her play). Dee is immediately corrupted by her roommate, smart-mouthed party girl Ginger Rogers. Rogers sneaks Dee out of school one weekend and takes her to a hotel party where some guy tries to rape her. She's rescued by Bruce Cabot, a medical student working as a hotel waiter. Dee and Cabot start spending time together, fall in love, and she gets pregnant. The finishing school headmistress (Beaulah Bondi) and Dee's mother are horrible about it, concerned only with how it will reflect on them, Dee considers suicide, then Cabot rides to her rescue. Did I mention this movie was pre-code? There's also a hilarious scene of Dee and Rogers rolling around on the floor of their bedroom, wrestling over a bottle of bathtub gin. The pre-code equivalent of a pillow fight I guess.
Even for a pre-code movie the morality of Finishing School is surprising. The only people who condemn Dee's pregnancy are the villains. Of course Dee and Cabot agree to get married at the end, but they don't express any regret about having sex first. I read reviews complaining that the plot was so vague as to be incomprehensible, though I don't think that's true. No one ever says the word "pregnant" but it's clear what they mean. I think to a 1934 audience it would have been completely obvious.
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