Lady for a Day is based on Damon Runyon’s short story Madame La Gimp. Capra and Runyon are an ideal match, with their knack for balancing sentiment with humor and in their affection for underdogs. Runyon’s surefire tale is prime fodder for Capra, and the meeting of material and director produces a disarming work full of feel-good schmaltz and well-tossed wisecracks. It’s unquestionably the best film ever made from a Runyon piece. Call it Capra-corn if you like, but it was made long before the uplift in the director’s movies became mechanically obvious and more than a little smug (as in his State of the Union of 1948). Lady for a Day’s plot is a reworking of Pygmalion, that is if Eliza were a decrepit geriatric and a drunk. It’s a “makeover” movie, made long before that concept became a cultural staple.

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
© 2008 Hansen Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.