The Girl from Missouri is a 1934 film directed by Jack Conway.
Jean Harlow stars as Eadie, who escapes her Missouri home and her vaguely creepy stepfather, her best friend Kitty along for the ride. She lights out for the big city and gets a job as a chorus girl, but what she really wants is a rich man to marry. And she'll let nothing stand in her way, as Eadie crosses Gold Digger with The Determinator.
Eadie's chorus group is hired to liven up a big party given by one Frank Cousins. Eadie worms her way into Cousins' office, puts on the charm, and is surprised when he agrees to marry her immediately. The truth of the matter is revealed when Cousins, who has suffered financial ruin, shoots himself as soon as Eadie walks out the door. Eadie doesn't let a little thing like suicide show her down, instead setting her cap for T.R. Paige (Lionel Barrymore), a wealthy industrialist whom she met at the fatal party. Paige regards Eadie with amusement but has no interest in her at all, even as she follows him from New York to Florida. In Florida she meets Paige's handsome, much more age-appropriate son Tom (Franchot Tone). Eadie switches targets from father to son, but Tom is much more interested in sex with Eadie than with putting a ring on her finger. Will Eadie finally land her rich husband?
Tropes:
- As You Know: In his one scene Eadie's obnoxious father-in-law identifies himself as her father-in-law by saying she's been a problem "ever since I married your mother."
- Chekhov's Gun: Cousins, who is just waiting for Eadie to leave before he can shoot himself, gives her some very expensive ruby cuff links. T.R. Paige knows this because a panicking Eadie asked him to hide them for her immediately after the gunshot. He uses this knowledge in the third act to frame her for robbery.
- Dramatic Irony: Cousins already had the gun in his hand when Eadie sashays into his office; he hurriedly sticks it back in the drawer. Eadie, noticing that he seems preoccupied, says "Were you doing something important?"
- Driven to Suicide: Eadie has bad timing with her first gold-digging target, as Frank Cousins kills himself immediately after meeting her.
- Food Slap: Tom, who is trying really hard to get Eadie into bed, yanks a ruff off of her dress and says "I'll buy you 20 new ones." She throws an ice cream sundae at him and says "Buy yourself a new tuxedo!"
- Gold Digger: Eadie is not at all bashful about it. She's not particularly well educated, and she's not a very good chorus girl, but she's good looking, and she wants to be a Trophy Wife.
- Lingerie Scene: Two. There's a fanservice moment in the first act when the chorus girls are getting ready at Cousins' party, and they're all in lingerie as they're changing into costumes. Later, towards the end of the movie, Eadie decides to get revenge by embarrassing T.R. T.R. is giving an interview to some admiring reporters (he's about to leave the country for a big diplomatic post), when Eadie jumps out of the front door of his hotel suite wearing a slip, garter belt, and stockings.
- Missing Mom: There's no mention of where the heck Tom's mother is, and it's lampshaded in a scene where Tom shows Eadie his baby picture, with his nanny.
- Mistaken for Servant: A drunken party guest gives T.R. Paige a dish full of cocktails, which causes Eadie to mistake him for a waiter. Paige plays along.
- Nature Adores a Virgin: This being a movie that was made at the exact moment that The Hays Code was being imposed, it has Jean Harlow being a bad girl and a good girl all at once. She is unapologetically determined to get a rich husband, but she also will not give up her virginity before she gets a ring on her finger. When Tom locks the door to the bedroom she starts crying, wishing that he wouldn't make her "cheap and common."Tom: Hey, listen, that gag of yours about being a good girl...that isn't on the level, is it?
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry: How Tom takes Eadie away from the clutches of Charlie Turner, having decided to marry her after all.
- Running Gag: While Eadie is jealously guarding her virginity until she gets married, her best friend Kitty is a slut on wheels. Kitty keeps making sexual advances to random men—bellhops, sailors, lifeguards—constantly requiring Eadie, who is trying to project an aura of class, to make her stop.
- Self-Made Man: T.R. Paige mentions at a dinner in his honor that unlike most of the Old Money people in his social circle, he worked his way up from nothing. That's why he's hostile to his son marrying working-class Eadie; Paige had to earn his social status and he doesn't want Eadie to jeopardize it.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: Jean Harlow always, always wore these. Eadie wears a sexy backless dress in the scene where Tom is showing her around the Paige family mansion.
- Sexy Soaked Shirt: At the climax of the film Tom throws a drunk Eadie into a shower to sober her up. It appears to work in sobering her up but it also makes her dress cling to her like a second skin.
- Worst News Judgment Ever: "RACKETEER'S GIRL ACCUSED OF THEFT" as the front-page headline in the paper, after T.R. Paige arranges for Jean to be framed for the theft of the cuff links, seems excessive.
