A good-time girl tiring of her life as an escort falls in love with one of her clients. Starring Kay Francis, Joel McCrea, Lilyan Tashman, Eugene Pallette, Allan Dinehart, and Lucile Webster Gordon. Story by Zoe Akins. Screenplay by Brian Marlow and Raymond Griffith. Directed by George Cukor. Boasting a juicy premise, an unpredictable script, and many delicious lines, Girls About Town is one of the most enjoyable Pre-Code films we’ve ever covered on Film Fridays. The cast, which includes the marvelously nuanced Kay Francis and the wickedly amusing Lilyan Tashman, sparkles with believable chemistry. More than that, they all seem to be having fun — and it’s infectious.

“In New York nightclubs, gold diggers Marie Bailey and Wanda Howard entertain stodgy but wealthy middle-aged businessmen from the Midwest. Wanda tires of her demeaning lifestyle until, on a yacht, she meets Jim Baker, the handsome associate of rotund, stingy tycoon Benjamin Thomas, the richest man in Lansing, Michigan. On a yacht, while Marie entertains Benjamin and becomes the victim of his practical jokes, Jim tells Wanda he is against her racket. She tells him to pretend they are lovers in the moonlight. She then pretends to drown herself and is rescued by Jim. Wanda’s feelings for Jim are not pretense, however, and later, at the zoo, Jim proposes to Wanda, who answers by ripping up her payment for entertaining him. Marie, determined to swindle Benjamin into giving her money, continues to see him, although he insists he is old-fashioned and wants only to stay at home and sing songs around the piano. Benjamin’s wife Daisy then visits Marie, who realizes that Daisy still loves her husband even though she has filed for divorce because of his stinginess. The two women make a pact to shame Benjamin into spending some money on them.

“At a jewelry store, Marie admires an emerald ring, while Daisy announces publicly that her penny-pinching husband never gave her an engagement ring. Embarrassed but spiteful, Benjamin buys over $50,000 in jewelry for Marie and gives his wife nothing. Meanwhile, Wanda asks her shiftless husband Alex for a divorce, and he agrees, but later shows up at Benjamin’s birthday party and makes a deal with Jim to divorce Wanda if Jim pays him $10,000, intimating that Wanda is in on the scheme. Jim pays the money, and when Wanda discovers Alex’s bribe, she is determined to get the money back and prove her innocence to Jim. When she arrives at Alex’s home, however, she discovers that he has a young wife who has just given birth, and Alex confesses he officially divorced Wanda two years before. Wanda then holds a rummage sale with her and Marie’s old evening clothes and collects the money to pay Jim. When Jim tells Benjamin they have been swindled by a pair of gold diggers, Marie promises to give her jewels back to save Wanda’s reputation, but instead gives them to Daisy, who lets Marie keep the emerald ring. Benjamin then takes the jewels from Daisy “for safe-keeping.” Jim and Wanda are reconciled, while Marie calls her manager to say that from now on, she is working alone.” (This summary is brought to you courtesy of TCM.)