Cafe Hostess

Cafe Hostess (1940)

"Check Your Hat, Mister!" (They'll take your shirt before the night is over!)

A dancehall girl meets a sailor and they fall in love, but the club’s owner doesn’t want the girl to leave.

Date of release
1940-01-11
TMDB
5.4 / 10 (12)
Runtime
1h 5m
Genres
Crime, Drama
Director
Sidney Salkow

Casting

Interesting facts

Cafe Hostess is a 1940 American crime film directed by Sidney Salkow and starring Preston Foster and Ann Dvorak. The screenplay was written by Harold Shumate, based on a story by Tay Garnett and Howard Higgin. Prior to filming the studio had been warned by the MPAA that the film did not comply with its code, but it is unclear whether changes were made to the script.

Production

Before filming began, the Production Code Administration (PCA) of the MPAA issued a complaint to Columbia that the script was in violation of the Production Code for its "general sordid, low-toned background and flavor" and the fact that the characters of Dan and Annie are criminals who do not face punishment.

The film began production in the last week of September 1939. Members of the cast announced at that time included Ann Dvorak, Preston Foster, Arthur Loft, Wynne Gibson, Betty Compson and Peggy Shannon. Compson, Gibson and Shannon had been stars during the silent era, and were now cast as "B" girls in the film. Filming wrapped during the week of October 24.

The film was originally titled Street of Missing Women, but on October 31, 1939, Columbia announced that it would retitle the film Cafe Hostess. However, when the film premiered nationwide in January 1940, it was billed as Street of Missing Women in many cities, including New York. The Cafe Hostess title was used in Los Angeles, where the film premiered on January 26 as the second feature to His Girl Friday at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

The Legion of Decency assigned the film an "A-2" classification, meaning it was only suitable for adult audiences. A title card at the beginning of the film reads: "B-Girls..... Bar Girls..... Cafe Hostesses..... Products of a man-made system, these girls whose stock in a trade is a tireless smile, a sympathetic ear and a shoddy evening gown, they prey on the very men who made them what they are. The Cafe Hostess knows only one law.....

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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