Free, Blonde and 21
Cast & Crew
Ricardo Cortez
Lynn Bari
Mary Beth Hughes
Joan Davis
Henry Wilcoxon
Robert Lowery
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
At New York's Sherrington Hotel, which is exclusively for women, scheming Jerry Daily decides to fake a suicide attempt to punish her married lover, John Crane, after he decides to reconcile with his wife. Carol Northrup, another of the hotel's lodgers, is suspicious of Jerry but nonetheless takes her to the Mayberry Hospital, where she meets the owner, Dr. Hugh Mayberry, and his young assistant, Dr. Stephen Greig. Steve quickly becomes enamoured of Jerry, while Hugh and Carol begin seeing each other. Jerry grows tired of the constant pressures Steve's job puts on him, and she caustically points out to Carol that whenever she is with Hugh, Steve must work at the hospital. Jerry decides that turnabout is fair play and, one night, breaks a date with Steve. While Jerry is at a nightclub, Steve tags along with Hugh and Carol when the senior doctor shows Carol the beach house he is building. Carol happily accepts when Hugh proposes to her that evening, while at the nightclub, Jerry begins an ill-fated romance with hoodlum Mickey Ryan. Jerry continues to two-time Steve with Mickey, until one evening, she is out with Mickey at a tavern. The owner incautiously displays a large sum of money, and after Mickey sends Jerry out to wait in the car, he robs and kills the man. Mickey is himself wounded in the struggle, and Jerry, desperate to save him, calls Steve. After Jerry lies and tells Steve that Mickey is her brother, Steve agrees to meet them at Hugh's beach house. There, he operates on Mickey and attempts to save his life, but the gunshot wound is too severe and Mickey dies. Steve covers up the evidence at the house, but the police grow suspicious when they find Mickey's body and begin searching for the doctor who operated on him. Wishing to start a new life with Jerry, Steve quits his job at the Mayberry Hospital and tells Jerry he will send for her once he has established himself in a small town. Meanwhile, the police discover evidence of the covered-up operation at the beach house and suspect Hugh of murdering Mickey and the tavern owner. Certain that Jerry is behind the cover-up, Carol confronts her, and when Jerry refuses to divulge any information, Carol and hotel maid Nellie do some investigating. They discover that Mickey was seen with Jerry on the night he disappeared, but when they take their information to the police, they find that Steve has turned himself in to clear Hugh. Steve denies that Jerry is involved and implicates only himself, but the police trick Jerry into revealing her guilt and Steve's innocence. After the case is cleared up, Carol prepares for her marriage to Hugh, while Nellie enjoys a tryst with her taxi driver boyfriend Gus.
Director
Ricardo Cortez
Cast
Lynn Bari
Mary Beth Hughes
Joan Davis
Henry Wilcoxon
Robert Lowery
Alan Baxter
Katharine Aldridge
Helen Ericson
Chick Chandler
Joan Valerie
Elise Knox
Dorothy Dearing
Herbert Rawlinson
Kay Linaker
Thomas Jackson
Richard Lane
Dorothy Moore
Lenita Lane
Gwen Kenyon
Bob Ryan
George Meeker
Kay Griffith
Ruth Warren
Ruth Clifford
Frank Coghlan Jr.
John Wald
Don Forbes
Iva Stewart
Henry Roquemore
Hooper Atchley
Edward Cooper
Jerry Fletcher
James C. Morton
Mickey Simpson
Harold Goodwin
Sarah Edwards
Grace Goodall
Crew
Clay Adams
Joseph E. Aiken
William H. Anderson
George Barnes
Harry Brand
Norman Colbert
Richard Day
George Dudley
Herschel
Frances Hyland
Samuel Kaylin
Thomas Little
Sam Schneider
John Stone
George Wright
Saul Wurtzel
Sol M. Wurtzel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Working titles for this film were The Girl from Kansas City and Hotel for Women No. 2. While Free, Blonde and 21 was billed in Hollywood Reporter as a follow-up to Twentieth Century-Fox's Elsa Maxwell's Hotel for Women, there is little similarity between the two films, other than the fact that both stories take place at a New York City hotel for women called the Sherrington. The film was remade in 1944 as Ladies of Washington, with Louis King directing and Trudy Marshall and Ronald Graham starring.
