Professional Sweetheart Reviews

Ginger Rogers did not use her singing voice in this picture, as Etta Moten dubbed her one song, "My Imaginary Sweetheart" (Edward Eliscu, Harry Akst), which, as it turned out, was the basis for the Great Britain title. Just as TV has been the target for barbed satire in the last half of the century, so it was with radio in the first half, and this is an often funny comedy on that subject. Rogers is a radio star known as the "Purity Girl of the Air" on a show sponsored by Ratoff, the "Ippsie-Wippsie Radio Hour." Ratoff makes wash cloths and it's important that Rogers have a pristine image. She, on the other hand, is not that way by nature. She likes to go dancing uptown and to have fun with various men. To keep her from straying, she is flanked by a retinue that includes Pangborn, McHugh, and Jenkins. She'd like to have some fun in her life but she's followed around like a new Miss America. Her fan mail is by the carload, so it's suggested that she find a "professional sweetheart" out of all the letters, someone she can see in public, if not in private, to maintain her facade. Foster, a rube from Kentucky, is chosen to be that man and they do, in fact, fall in love, with the plan being to marry them on the radio. Rogers decides that she likes living in the hinterlands and in order to keep her on the show, Ratoff must arrange a business merger with his hated rival, Kennedy, who runs a dish rag company. Rogers comes back to star in the "Ippsie-Kelsey" show and everything is ipsy-pipsy and hunkydory at the endy-wendy. In later years, the legend states that Marilyn Chambers, star of many "adult" films, was found to have posed for the Ivory Snow company, a situation that was rectified the moment they found out what her sideline was. Producers Cooper and Swanson surrounded Rogers with some of the best comedy characters in the business with Ratoff, Pangborn, McHugh, Pitts, Holloway, Jenkins, et al. and the result was often hilarious. Swanson later gave up producing to become one of the most respected literary agents in Hollywood. Foster, who had been borrowed from Fox, became a director and specialized in low-budget films of the MR. MOTO genre. Prior to this, Foster and Rogers had appeared together in YOUNG MAN OF MANHATTAN.