For his final film Frank Capra chose to remake his 1933 "Lady for a Day". It might be a long way from his best work but shooting in Panavision and colour and with an all-star cast he conjured up a sumptuous entertainment even if it did feel more than a little old-fashioned by 1961. It's the old Damon Runyon story about an old apple seller, basically a beggar, with a daughter in Europe who thinks her mother is some kind of New York socialite. When the daughter decides to visit, and bring her future husband and his father, (Spanish aristocracy, no less), with her it's left to mum's gangster friend to turn her into that 'lady for a day' or in this case, a week.
You could describe it as return to Capra-corn at its most schmaltzy but with Bette Davis as the apple seller, Glenn Ford as the gangster, an unlikely Hope Lange as Ford's girlfriend and a supporting cast that includes an Oscar-nominated Peter Falk, Arthur O'Connell, Thomas Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton, (almost walking off with the film), and a newcomer by the name of Ann-Margaret it's hugely entertaining and its two and half hours running time flies by. Davis may be miscast, (we always preferred Bette as a bitch), and her role is never fully developed but everyone else is fine and while it may be no late masterpiece it's still a solid conclusion to a distinguished career.
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