Broadway Musketeers

Synopsis

Isabel Dowling (Margaret Lindsay), Fay Reynolds (Ann Sheridan), and Connie Todd (Marie Wilson) are three women who grew up together in an orphanage, and who meet again later in life. Each woman's life has taken a very different path: Isabel is married with a young daughter, Connie is an office secretary, and Fay performs in nightclubs. The three are reunited when Fay is arrested and Isabel and Connie arrive to bail her out. They make plans to keep in touch.

Isabel is bored and unhappy in her marriage. When she and Connie go to a nightclub to watch Fay sing, she meets gambler Phil Peyton (Richard Bond) and they soon begin an affair. Stanley Dowling (John Litel) discovers the affair; he divorces Isabel and retains custody of their daughter Judy (Janet Chapman). Isabel goes to live with Phil whose gambling soon ruins them. Fay and Stanley fall in love and marry.

Isabel has been separated from her daughter for some time when Fay takes pity on her and one day allows her to take Judy; however, Phil puts the child up as security against his debts. The gangsters to whom Phil owes money discover he has deceived them and that Judy was kidnapped from her father; they kill Phil in retribution. Trapped with Judy, Isabel overhears the gangsters deciding to kill the two of them to cover their crime. In a bid to save her daughter, Isabel throws herself from a window with a newspaper clipping about the kidnapping in her hand, trading her life to clue police in to Judy's whereabouts. Judy is rescued and thereafter symbolically takes her mother's place in the trio's ritual birthday meeting.

Production

The black-and-white film was produced from late May to late June 1938. Its working title was Three Girls on Broadway. M.K. Jerome and Jack Scholl wrote two songs for the film, both sung by Sheridan: "Has It Ever Occurred to You?" and "Who Said That This Isn't Love?"

Release

Released October 8, 1938, Broadway Musketeers garnered tepid to poor reviews. New York Times reviewer Frank Nugent compared the film to a nightmare in its difficulty to follow, while Variety called it "a programmer of average distinction". The review in Film Daily found the cast superior to the story, saying that the plot elements did not "add up".

Decades later, Leonard Maltin gave the film two and a half out of four stars in his Movie Guide and called it "a snappy remake ... with some interesting plot variations".