User Reviews

This is a film about a television show. At least a television show is the starting point for the trilogy of stories that comprise the narrative. It was a television show that was originally a radio show that was very popular on radio in the forties and then moved into TV. The American public loved it. Ordinary people got the chance at a brief moment of celebrity with a chance of winning their heart's desire. A small group of women would be selected from the audience and each would describe her life and ask for something she needed. In a sense, the show was a precursor for reality shows like Jerry Springer's, although not nearly as crass. The stories were written by three of the top American writers working at the time: Dorothy Parker, John Ashworth and Faith Baldwin. They were all excellent snapshots of contemporary American life. Baldwin's story concerned a man and wife and their small son. Their lives seem idyllic until tragedy strikes. Ashworth's story is about a young man willing to place himself in extreme danger in order to make his way in the world. Parker's pen was always dipped in acid and she was never happier that when she was ridiculing the class of people she knew too well. Parker's story was entitled, "Horsie". It concerned a nurse hired as a nanny for a newborn. The family was too rich and stylish to ever attend to the mundane details of taking care of the child themselves. They poke malicious fun at their sweet, innocent, unsuspecting nanny, simply because she is unattractive and unsophisticated. She doesn't know she is the butt of their jokes and thinks they are wonderful. The story does not make fun of poor "Horsie" as they call her. It is not "Horsie" who is depicted as being pathetic. The film is perhaps sentimental to a fault but it is so well done, that doesn't matter.