Stay away from Seventh Avenue! So go the lyrics for a song from the musical version of this story, sung by a certain "Funny Girl". While the story of the musical is quite altered from the movie, most of the plot is intact. It all surrounds the desires of a buyer and model/designer who leave a prominent design firm in New York's garment district to start their own company and find it difficult to merge their quite different ambitions. A non-singing and dancing Dan Dailey plays the gregarious salesman who keeps many an out of town store owner happy, while Susan Hayward is the tough-talking model aspiring for greater things. Each of them judge success differently, and in aspiring for greater heights, deny the importance of their own love for each other in comparison to their careers.
Cut down to a tight 90 minutes, this is an interesting look at one of the many trades that makes New York City famous, yet seems to be somewhat streamlined, obviously several key points missing. Most obvious is the diluting of George Sanders' character, an obvious attempt to cash in on his Addison DeWitt character from "All About Eve", still a powerful big Apple character, but rather mellowed. The true delight of the film is the "Guiding Light" character played by Sam Jaffe, a sort of "Fairy God Mother" to the ambitious but confused Dailey and Hayward. Amusing comic relief is provided by Marvin Kaplan, 70's and 80's TV perennial as an eager beaver low on the new company's totem pole who pretends to be a manager to win over the company's new secretary.
Another interesting quality of the film is its depiction of "tough" New York being not so tough, even in the wake of the parent company getting a new rival as four of their staff depart. Hayward gives a multi-faceted performance as the tough designer not unwilling to be sexually harassed if it promotes her ambitions. While the film's theme doesn't promote the ideal of a tough business woman "making it", it doesn't crucify the idea either by giving Hayward some tense dramatic moments where the conflict inside her bellies both ideas. This gives her a great emotionally torn character to play, making her the more interesting of the two, as Dailey seems determined to bring her down to what society in the pre-feminism days thought a woman's place should be.
Cut down to a tight 90 minutes, this is an interesting look at one of the many trades that makes New York City famous, yet seems to be somewhat streamlined, obviously several key points missing. Most obvious is the diluting of George Sanders' character, an obvious attempt to cash in on his Addison DeWitt character from "All About Eve", still a powerful big Apple character, but rather mellowed. The true delight of the film is the "Guiding Light" character played by Sam Jaffe, a sort of "Fairy God Mother" to the ambitious but confused Dailey and Hayward. Amusing comic relief is provided by Marvin Kaplan, 70's and 80's TV perennial as an eager beaver low on the new company's totem pole who pretends to be a manager to win over the company's new secretary.
Another interesting quality of the film is its depiction of "tough" New York being not so tough, even in the wake of the parent company getting a new rival as four of their staff depart. Hayward gives a multi-faceted performance as the tough designer not unwilling to be sexually harassed if it promotes her ambitions. While the film's theme doesn't promote the ideal of a tough business woman "making it", it doesn't crucify the idea either by giving Hayward some tense dramatic moments where the conflict inside her bellies both ideas. This gives her a great emotionally torn character to play, making her the more interesting of the two, as Dailey seems determined to bring her down to what society in the pre-feminism days thought a woman's place should be.