Girls About Town 1931

Two glamorous women, Wanda Howard Kay Francis and Marie Bailey Lilyan Tashman, move through a world of high society and transactional relationships, sharing a luxurious apartment and planning their next move. They accompany two balding, middle‑aged businessmen from out of town—each pitched as a potential mark at a price of $500 apiece—to help Jerry Chase [Alan Dinehart] close a deal, a scheme that rests on discretion and appearances. To avoid inviting the men upstairs, the women enlist their African American maid Hattie Louise Beavers to disguise herself as their mother and wait at the window, a ruse that underscores the precarious balance between ambition and ethics in their lives.

Wanda is weary of this life, and yet her fortunes take a turn when she and Marie board a yacht the following night to lure Benjamin Thomas [Eugene Pallette] and his dashing business associate Jim Baker [Joel McCrea]. Jim, who knows the women are hired entertainment, is nevertheless drawn to Wanda, and a genuine connection begins to form between them, sparking a contradiction between the truth of their feelings and the profit-driven origins of their relationship. When Jerry pays Wanda for her part in the scheme, she tears up the check, signaling a tilt toward something more authentic than the money that has shaped her reality. As Jim comes to see that Wanda’s affection is real, he asks her to marry him, and she agrees—with one caveat: her estranged husband, Alex Howard [Anderson Lawler], remains a complication she cannot simply erase. Wanda asks Jim for a divorce, and Alex quietly consents.

Meanwhile, the tangled web widens as Benjamin’s wife—Mrs. Daisy Thomas [Lucile Gleason]—strings into the story, a divorce brewing because of Thomas’s stingy ways. Marie orchestrates a scene at a jewelry store where Mrs. Thomas can publicly vent about her husband’s thrift; moved by the display, Benjamin impulsively buys Marie lavish merchandise, a purchase valued at around $50,000, deepening the emotional stakes and testing loyalties across the board. The party atmosphere shifts when Alex crashes the birthday celebration Marie has arranged for Benjamin, pressing Jim with an ultimatum: $10,000 or he will name Jim as the co‑respondent in the divorce. He also insinuates that Wanda is part of the blackmail scheme, and Jim, swayed by that lie, ends the engagement.

Seeking to protect her position and the truth, Wanda travels to Brooklyn to confront Alex. He introduces her, in disguise as a cousin, to the ailing Mrs. Howard and their baby—Edna Howard Lucile Browne—explaining why the money matters so much. He confesses that he already secured a Mexican divorce years earlier and promises to repay once he’s back on his feet. Touched by the revelation, Wanda decides against pressing the issue and leaves without the money.

In a bid to do right, Wanda auctions off a portion of her possessions to raise $10,000 and also returns the jewelry she had received. She hands Jim the proceeds, and almost at once, Jim has a change of heart as the emotional truth of their connection comes to the fore. The couple reconciles, choosing love over the precarious calculus that defined their earlier actions. In a parallel arc, Marie returns Benjamin’s gifts to his wife and helps in reuniting the couple, sealing a final gesture of reconciliation that echoes the film’s broader message: money can shape appearances, but genuine affection has the power to restore what had seemed irretrievably broken.