Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Lady for a Day Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 9, 2024

Re-releasing on Blu-ray via Sony and the Frank Capra at Columbia Collection is the director's 1933 Lady for a Day, a comedy starring Warren William, May Robson, Guy Kibbee, Glenda Farrell, Walter Connolly and Jean Parker. This latest version delivers a new video presentation and lossless mono track compared to the 2012 Inception Media release, although sadly without any extras (among them an audio commentary and several featurettes which were once available with its now out-of-print 2012 predecessor).

The "lady" of the title is Apple Annie (May Robson), a tough, gin-swilling peddler of—what else?—apples among the beggars and petty crooks of New York's Times Square, which, even in the Thirties, was already a den of iniquity. Two things are special about Annie. She's the good luck charm of Dave the Dude (Warren William), one of New York's premiere gangsters, who won't place a bet, pull a job or do a deal without first buying an apple from Annie, to the eternal frustration of underlings and cohorts like Happy McGuire (Ned Sparks). The second thing is a secret: Annie has a daughter, Louise (Jean Parker), whom she long ago sent away to Europe. Louise thinks her mother is a rich society lady, her mother having invented an entire life in written letters filled with receptions, teas and formal functions. A porter at the hotel smuggles out Louise's replies, and the deception works perfectly... until one day Louise writes that she's en route to New York with her fine Spanish fiancé, Carlos (Barry Norton), and his father, Count Romero (Walter Connolly), who want to meet Louise's mother. When Annie's friends miss her on the street, they seek out Dave the Dude, who finds Annie in her apartment, drunk and despairing. Before he knows what's hit him, Dave has agreed to help Annie fake being the lady her daughter expects. Like many things that sound simple when you say them fast, this task quickly gets complicated...

Click here to read the rest of Michael Reuben's excellent review of the film, which he notes "runs a taut 96 minutes, has a snappy pace and overlapping dialogue that has kept it sounding contemporary, and retains the distinctive fizz of Runyon's penny-ante underworld." Adding that Lady for a Day "helped get both Capra and [Columbia] taken seriously." And closing with, "the film remains a buoyant souffle that, like any good fairy tale, creates its own self- contained world."

Lady for a Day Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sony's release of Lady for a Day features a different 1080p/AVC-encoded video transfer than its 2012 Inception Media cousin. While it offers many of the same improvements, it also struggles with print wear that's either exceedingly difficult to fix (I certainly don't claim to be an expert on such matters) or needs a larger budgeted, fuller and more thorough from-the-ground-up 4K restoration to eliminate. First, the good. Detail and fine texturing are largely preserved and resolved beautifully, despite the fact that the film is far softer at times than modern audiences are accustom. That should hardly matter to anyone with even a cursory familiarity with films of the era, but (unfortunately) remains worth mentioning. The feature's black and white photography has been restored beautifully (as it was previously), with rich, naturally delineated black levels, lovely gray midtones, and plenty of dimensionality-boosting contrast balancing. Grain is generally treated very well too, though there are moments that appear a touch digitized (a product of the remaster) and others that appear pulpy, on the verge of chunky (a product of the source negative). None of it is a distraction, thankfully.

Alas, the distracting element of the presentation is a series of roughhewn, faintly white vertical lines that flicker over the image at times. A product of the print and original negative, it's another aspect of the picture that's easy to overlook. Yet one that requires noting and highlighted in several of my accompanying screenshots. (Peruse at your leisure. If you don't notice the lines at various points in the screen captures, perhaps you'll be unbothered by them when the film is in motion.) Again, I can't help but think that a more expensive, more extensive 4K restoration with today's technology could clean the image up further, and without any underlying loss in quality or faithfulness. But it's also unlikely we'll see that anytime soon. Here's hoping.

Lady for a Day Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony's DTS-HD Master Audio mono mix sounds quite good despite its age and era-specific limitations. Dialogue is clean and intelligible at all times, and like Mr. Reuben and its 2012 release, I found this presentation to be remarkably clear and well intoned. Music is a tad shallow, hollow and tinny even, but other elements fare much better, retaining the telltale tenor of the early 30s without sacrificing modern clarity.

Lady for a Day Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are included with Lady for a Day.

Lady for a Day Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lady for a Day retains its power all these years later, and even had me laughing out loud on several occasions (which I'm not prone to do with films of the era). It's fun, light on its feet and full of misadventure, a perfect combo for a comedy hailing from any decade. Sony's Blu-ray edition is currently only available in the Frank Capra at Columbia Collection, but it's another offering that makes the set worth owning. While its AV presentation has its share of issues, there's enough to enjoy to make it an easy watch. There aren't any extras on tap, but so it goes.