Lady for a Day

Lady for a Day is a 1933 American pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the 1929 short story "Madame La Gimp" by Damon Runyon. It was the first film for which Capra received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director and the first Columbia Pictures release to be nominated for Best Picture. Capra also directed its 1961 remake, Pocketful of Miracles. Plot The story focuses on Apple Annie (May Robson), an aging and wretched fruit seller in New York City, whose daughter Louise (Jean Parker) has been raised in a Spanish convent since she was an infant. Louise has been led to believe her mother is a society matron named Mrs. E. Worthington Manville who lives at the Hotel Marberry. Annie discovers her charade is in danger of being uncovered when she learns Louise is sailing to New York with her fiancé Carlos (Barry Norton) and his father, Count Romero (Walter Connolly). Among Annie's patrons are Dave the Dude (Warren William), a gambling gangster who believes her apples bring him good luck, and his henchman Happy McGuire (Ned Sparks). Annie's friends from the street ask Dave to rent her an apartment at the Marberry and, although he initially declines, he has a change of heart and arranges for her to live in the lap of luxury in a palatial residence belonging to a friend. His girlfriend, nightclub owner Missouri Martin (Glenda Farrell), helps transform Annie from a dowdy street peddler to an elegant dowager. Dave arranges for erudite pool hustler Henry D. Blake (Guy Kibbee) to pose as Annie's second husband, the dignified Judge Manville. At the pier, an elegantly dressed Annie tearfully reunites with Louise. A group of Annie's friends from the streets are watching from a distance. One of the street people says that she can remember when Annie “always looked like that.” (We never know the details of Annie's history, but her upper-crust origins are clear.) When three society reporters become suspicious about Mrs. E. Worthington Manville, of whom they can find no public records, they are kidnapped by members of Dave's gang, and their prolonged disappearance leads the local newspapers to accuse the police department of incompetence.