Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

When Robert Sterling heavyweight contender confides to Ann Sothern that he really hates boxing all I could think of was the film Twins where Arnold Schwarzenegger confesses to Danny DeVito that he really hates violence. To which DeVito replies, 'but you're so good at it.'That is the underlying plot premise for Ringside Maisie where our Brooklyn showgirl is stranded on a road and she's offered a lift by Sterling who is out doing road work under the watchful eye of manager George Murphy and trainer Maxie Rosenbloom. These guys prove useful after dancer Jack LaRue won't settle for just a professional relationship.When Sterling says he wants out of the fight racket, two fights away from a title shot despite what Sothern tells Murphy about being a heel, my sympathies were completely with him. He did invest years of time and money in Sterling and was right to want a return on his investment. And from what I saw looked out for him pretty good.Sterling is also saddled with Natalie Thompson a real peach of a girl friend who does nothing but eat and get carsick and won't be at his side at the climax. Later for her.But more than anything else Ringside Maisie shows the weakness of using this kind of plot for a series film. At times she shows interest in both Murphy and Sterling and you know because there will be another film that she won't wind up with either. In real life she did show some interest in Bob Sterling because Ann Sothern took him as her second husband.On the plus side there is a nice specialty number from Virginia O'Brien. But Ringside Maisie goes down as one of the weaker films in the series.

Ann Sothern is Maisie again in "Ringside Maisie," a 1941 film also starring Robert Sterling and George Murphy. It's possible that this film is where Ms. Sothern met Sterling, her first husband.The Maisie plots had certain similarities and have to be taken as separate stories, which has always bothered me. It would seem at the end of one film that Maisie had found the man of her dreams, yet in the next film, there would be someone else. Maisie was always the same - a flashy, down in her luck entertainer on her way to a job somewhere, getting stranded, meeting some guy that she hates at first, and then love blooms.In this entry, the man is George Murphy as Francis, who handles gifted prize fighter Terry Dolan (Sterling). Maisie has a job performing and loses it the same night because she won't sleep with her partner (although obviously that isn't stated). She winds up being a companion to the boxer's mother. Over time, she learns that Dolan wants only to buy a grocery store - he hates fighting and is frightened every time he goes into the ring. With Maisie's encouragement, he confronts Francis, who is also a friend, only to have Francis demand he live up to his contract, with disastrous results.These movies were, for the most part, very entertaining. Sothern never did anything she didn't shine in, definitely one of the most likable actresses ever - beautiful, warm, funny, always convincing. When her leading woman days were over, she continued her career as a character actress. She was a wonderful star, even if she didn't reach the heights of Jean Harlow or Carole Lombard. She has good support here from the handsome Sterling and the versatile George Murphy.Good entry into the series.

An intelligent script and very likable characters played by superb actors, including especially the adorable Ann Sothern, combine to make this an excellent movie.Even if it's not perfect, it's excellent.Maisie gets a chance to demonstrate her own character, her strength, her determination. One speech to a certain cynic gives us a chance to cheer -- literally cheer -- this gutsy and decent young woman who gets knocked down because she is decent.But, like a champion boxer, she keeps getting up.Hollywood had an unfortunate tendency to cast flabby or, well, let's say "underdeveloped" men as "heavyweight" boxers, such as Stu Irwin or, in this case, Robert Sterling, an otherwise good actor, and a good-looking leading man.But he's no Sylvester Stallone.In this boxing movie, Hollywood didn't make the mistake it did in "Cinderella Man," in which a real-life boxer's character was slimed in order to make a dramatic point.Of course there's conflict, or it wouldn't be drama, but there are no two-dimensional straw-man villains.Instead there are real people, with their own goals and dreams, trying to fit into the real world, trying to get ahead within the context of what seemed possible, and to do it while remaining decent and true to themselves.Ann Sothern just outdid herself in this, a role that gave her a chance to show strength as well as charm.The rest of the cast, from "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom, in one of his best roles, to Margaret Moffatt and John Indrisano, the latter two pretty unknown today, to the great George Murphy, were just super.Honest: You ought to see this one.

This is a enjoyable, fun, moving movie. Ann Sothern is one of my favorite actresses, she could do anything, sing, dance, act, and be funny. She should of became a bigger star, she should of made it in the 1930s, she had the screen image of women who were in the movies at the time, she could of been up with Jean Harlow, Kay Francis, Constance Bennett, Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Norma Shearer, Glenda Farrell, Joan Blondell. She had their kind of talent and screen presence which was popular in the 1930s, but they had too many women like that and besides Ann Sothern became popular around the mid-1930s, when movies and women were changing on screen, and that kind of acting style women did in the 1930s wasn't popular in the 1940s. Maybe if Ann would of came around and became popular in the early 1930s, maybe she would of been a bigger star. But who cares she made it. But Ann Sothern remain well-known and popular in the 1940s, and is very watchable. MGM should of made her a bigger star. She's beautiful in this movie. The funniest, memorable scene is the beginning of the movie, Ann Sothern is dancing with a guy, their doing the dances of the time, Ann is really getting down, its actually funny how the guy spins and kicks around her while their fast dancing. You have to see it. She switches from comedy to drama beautifully. Ann really takes your breath away in this movie right along with dashing George Murphy and Robert Sterling. Seeing Robert discover that he's blind will make tears come in your eyes. Beautiful Virigina O'Brien is always a delight. like Turner Classic Movies shows it from time to time. Try to catch it.