YMMV / Kitty Foyle

• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • This film is absolutely soaked in a 1930s attitude towards men and women and the relationship between the sexes, which must have been even more noticeable after the United States entered World War II. Apparently once upon a time it was common practice for single women to live in apartment buildings where men were not allowed to visit. Most surprising is the startling sexism shown by Mark, whom the movie is obviously setting up to be the safer and more reliable choice for Kitty. For their first "date" Mark and Kitty play solitaire for three hours, whereupon Mark says that it was a test, so he could be sure she wasn't a Gold Digger. And when Mark meets Kitty's roommates, in their pajamas with facial masks on and their hair in curlers, he says "I've seen better specimens in a glass jar."
  • The main source of dramatic tension, the idea that it's deeply problematic for a secretary to marry into an Old Money family, is quite dated.
  • The prologue offers another pretty jaw-dropping example of sexism in The '30s, when it portrays women achieving "equal rights" as a negative development that led to them losing privileges like men giving up seats on the trolley.

---