Two Sisters from Boston

Plot

Abigail, a young lady from Boston, leaves home to go to New York City for singing lessons, her grand ambition being to sing for the Metropolitan Opera there. Unable to make ends meet, she takes a job singing in a Bowery beer hall without telling anyone from her family back home.

When her sister Martha comes to town looking for her, Abigail keeps up the ruse. She even sneaks into a performance as a Met, persuading her family that she really is a singer there, despite causing a mishap that interferes with Olaf Olstrom, the company's top tenor.

Martha eventually figures things out. She decides what Abigail needs is a respectable husband and sets out to introduce her to Lawrence, a wealthy young patron of the arts. To her surprise, Lawrence falls for Martha instead, which is fine by Abigail, who simply wants to sing.

Cast

Reception

According to MGM records, the film was a hit, making $3,334,000 in the US and Canada and $1,127,000 elsewhere, leading to a profit of $605,000.

Influence

The English post-punk band The Chameleons used a sample from the film as the introduction to the song "Don't Fall," the first song on their 1983 debut album Script of the Bridge. The scene features Lawford's character, Lawrence Tyburt Patterson, Jr., asking his mother, played by Nella Walker, about the age of his father. After she tells him that his father is younger than he looks and still 'spry,' Patterson, Jr. says "In his autumn, before the winter, comes man's last mad surge of youth." His mother quickly replies, "What on earth are you talking about?" These two lines consist of the sample as used by the Chameleons. Patterson, Jr. goes on to say that he is quoting the ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles, but the quote itself appears to be either apocryphal, misattributed by the screenwriters or else created by them originally. The Chameleons also used the same sample on an otherwise instrumental recording from the same period, "Prisoners of the Sun."