"Working Girls": Little Frogs in a Big Pond

Working Girls (1931)

Remake potential: Turn the sisters into twins and make the story about identity rather than romance.

• Country: United States

• Genre: Pre-Code comedy-drama

• Director: Dorothy Arzner

• Starring: Dorothy Hall, Judith Wood, Charles “Buddy” Rogers, Paul Lukas

DOROTHY HALL AS MAE THORPE AND JUDITH WOOD AS JUNE THORPE IN WORKING GIRLS (1931), DIRECTED BY DOROTHY ARZNER. COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES.

Clinical Overview

Sisters Mae and June Thorpe move from Indiana to a New York City boardinghouse and look for work and love.

Mae, the romantic, falls for a womanizer, Boyd Wheeler: the “Little Frog” to his “Big Frog, in a big pond.” Little sister June has to play the part of big sister and talk some sense into her.

Diagnosis

The film slaps on a happy ending for June with an out-of-the-blue love interest.

Prescription

Make the women twins. Everyone expects them to be the same. Pervy men project their sexual fantasies. But they must assert what makes them unique—especially to each other.