Kitty (1945 film)

Infobox Film
name = Kitty


image_size =
caption = Theatrical poster to "Kitty" (1945)
director = Mitchell Leisen
producer = Mitchell Leisen
writer = Rosamond Marshall (novel)
Karl Tunberg
Darrell Ware
narrator =
starring = Paulette Goddard
Ray Milland
music = Victor Young
cinematography = Daniel L. Fapp
editing = Alma Macrorie
distributor = Paramount Pictures
released = 31 March 1946
runtime = 103 minutes
country = United States
language = English
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0037849

"Kitty" is a 1945 film directed by Mitchell Leisen, based on the novel by Rosamond Marshall, with a screenplay by Karl Tunberg. It stars Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland, Constance Collier (in a fine comedic performance), Patric Knowles, Reginald Owen, and Cecil Kellaway as the English Painter Thomas Gainsborough. Sara Allgood is also featured in another fine supporting performance.

It concerns a rags to riches story about a young guttersnipe girl from the slums during the time of the 18th century in London.

Plot summary

Kitty (Goddard) is found working on the streets picking pockets by the painter Thomas Gainsborough (Kellaway) and agrees to sit for a portrait for him. She then attracts the attention of wealthy playboy Sir Hugh Marcy (Milland) who upon finding out her real social status uses her for revenge against a former colleague whom he lost his job in the foreign office by posing Kitty off as a lady of fashion, what Sir Hugh does not count on is the attraction Kitty develops for him.

Notes

* The author of the novel was also responsible for the The Bixby Girls another work later turned into the film All the Fine Young Cannibals, starring Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood. Kitty was considered very successful as a novel and not considered to be as scandalous as Forever Amber released around the same time and subsequently banned by the Roman Catholic legion of Decency.

* To acquire a Cockney accent,Goddard shared a room with the actress Ida Lupino's mother who had quite a thick one for a time, and learned diction from Constance Collier who had also acted in the film.

* Upon seeing this film the director Jean Renoir decided to cast Goddard in his Film The Diary of a Chambermaid

* The film was nominated for one Oscar for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White. Director Leisen worked very hard with the set and costume designers to create a historically correct picture of 18th. century England.