St. Louis Woman (1934) User Reviews

A bit better than I'd originally suspected....

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 13 August 2014]

This film is one of the few examples you can find of Jeanette Loff singing and acting. While famous in her time, she only made a few films and died understand circumstances when she was only in her mid-30s.

"St. Louis Woman" is a strange little B-movie that isn't particularly distinguished nor is it particularly bad. It's really just an odd little time-passer that might interest some viewers like myself. It begins with seeing Jim Warren (Johnny Mack Brown) wow the crowds with his running for St. Louis University. However, an evil owner of a local pro football team wants Jim and is willing to destroy him if he can't! So, enlists the help of St. Louis Lou (Loff) and sets up the young man to be caught in a compromising position. Unlike college stars these days, this ends up getting Jim thrown out of school and he's pretty much a pariah. However, he isn't about to give up and the good-hearted Lou decides to help him out of this jam.

The best things about the film are Brown's acting as well as some parts of the plot. Brown would later become a well-known B-western star and his easygoing manner is seen here in "St. Louis Woman". As for the plot, a few aspects are clichéd (such as the fallen woman with a heart of gold cliché) but for the most part the story is interesting and better than the average B-movie of the period. Unusual and worth a look.

................"with her diamond rings"

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 27 March 2018]

Poverty Row outfit Showmen's Pictures was the outfit who produced St. Louis Woman. In typical B picture fashion though the film is set in St. Louis we don't hear a note of W.C. Handy's classic song.

The title role is played by singer Jeanette Loff who is a nightclub singer working for gambler Earl Foxe who owns the club. One night college football star Johnny Mack Brown gets into a brawl over her resulting in his expulsion from college.

Brown who starred for the University of Alabama before Bear Bryant was around is certainly well cast for the part. Down on his luck, Brown gets a boost from Loff as she gets Foxe to hire him for his professional team.

The film does provide an interesting look at pro football in its early days. When college stars like Red Grange signed with pro teams it was starting to gain respectability.

Sadly though when Loff gives Brown up and gets the college to take him back he would not be playing any more football for them. I think the NCAA would have frowned on that. As for Brown he's got good girl Roberta Gale waiting for him.

For a poverty row film, not too bad.

From all American hero to all American bum and back.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 22 August 2015]

College scandal turns football hero Johnny Mack Brown to a goal-less street tramp. He runs into an old flame whose influence gets him a pro football contract. Will he learn from past mistakes and make good? Not if the big boys have their say. That is pretty much it in this practically plot less movie where you keep waiting for something to happen that never does. Brown's athletic prowess is used to good advantage but other than a few good lines, it is a dull game. Leading ladies Jeanette Loft and Roberta Gale are dull beautiful blocks of ice. The only amusing character is a ballsy older woman, a sort of combination of Sophie Tucker and Texas Guinan who runs a cabaret. Her brief appearance has more heat than the other hour.

Jeanette Loff in the title role

[drednm · 22 March 2013]

Johnny Mack Brown stars as a college football star who's expelled after a night club brawl. The fight is over St. Louis Lou (Jeanette Loff) aka "The Missouri Nightingale," the woman who owns the club and is involved with a gambler. After his expulsion, Brown wanders around looking for a job. One night in a soup line he runs across Loff again.

She feels sorry for Brown and maybe even falls for him but she can't escape the gambler. She helps get him hired on a professional football team, but the gambler rigs it with the manager to make Brown look bad. Will Brown succeed as a pro player? Will Loff escape the gambler? Will love win out? Ultra-low budget film races along, but the stars are decent despite the overall cheapness. Supporting cast is mostly unknowns but Earle Foxe is suitably smarmy as the gambler and Roberta Gale plays an old girlfriend. The song "Leave Me Alone" is sung by Loff and isn't bad.

Loff was pretty and had a decent singing voice but never really caught on in films. She's probably best remembered for KING OF JAZZ.

St Louis Woman review

[JoeytheBrit · 4/10 · 20 April 2020]

A college football star is expelled after a nightclub fight over a woman. Lukewarm pre-code b-picture with a pair of likeable leads who struggle to do much with a thin plot under Albert Ray's weak direction.

Wonderful Performance From Jeanette Loff

[HarleanHayworth · 10/10 · 26 June 2015]

This is a great B-movie from 1934 starring the beautiful and talented Jeanette Loff. She seems to have been forgotten today but she was a popular starlet in the early 1930s.

Johnny Mack Brown is Jim Warren, a college football player with a sweet girlfriend (Roberta Gale). One night he goes to a nightclub to see "St. Louis Lou" (Jeanette Loff) sing. Jim gets into a fight that gets him kicked off the team and expelled from school. When Lou finds out he is broke she convinces her gangster boyfriend Harry (Earle Foxe) to give Jim a job on his professional football team. Warren tries to sabotage Jim's career but Lou steps in and makes sure he is a success. Lou falls in love with Jim which makes Warren even angrier. She tells Warren she wants to marry Jim and lead a normal life with "respectability". Meanwhile Jim's forgotten girlfriend wants him to go back to school and become a doctor. Lou will do anything to keep Jim happy even if that means closing down her nightclub or committing a murder.

Johnny Mack Brown and Jeanette Loff make a great on screen team - they also starred together in the 1928 silent Annapolis. The highlight of the film is Jeanette singing two lovely songs. She wears some fantastic costumes too, Sadly this was one of Jeanette's final films. She took her own life a few years later.