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Quick Answer: Three Girls About Town (1941) is a screwball comedy about three sisters entangled in hotel chaos, labor disputes, and a missing mediator’s “corpse.” Beneath the farce, Catholic lessons emerge around family responsibility, truth versus deception, the dignity of work, and chastity in relationships.
🎬 Film Summary
- Setting: The Merchants Hotel during overlapping conventions—morticians and aircraft labor negotiations.
- Main Characters:
- Hope Banner (Joan Blondell): A hostess, practical and caring.
- Faith Banner (Binnie Barnes): Her sister, equally caught in the hotel’s reputation struggles.
- Charity Banner (Janet Blair): The youngest, supposed to be in private school, but eager to join her sisters’ hostess work.
- Tommy Hopkins (John Howard): A reporter in love with Hope, torn between romance and career ambition.
- Plot Highlights:
- A dead body (actually a mediator in suspended animation) is discovered.
- The sisters scramble to hide it to protect the hotel’s reputation.
- Tommy sees a scoop, complicating matters.
- The corpse is shuffled through poker games, laundry carts, and coffins.
- Tommy impersonates the mediator, resolves the labor dispute, and wins professional recognition.
- The “corpse” revives, revealing hypnosis rather than death.
- Romantic resolution: Tommy seeks to marry Hope, not Charity, despite Charity’s flirtations.
Sources:
✝️ Catholic Lessons & Reflections
Though a light comedy, the film offers moral cues that resonate with Catholic teaching:
Family Responsibility:
- Hope works long hours to pay for Charity’s education. This reflects the Catholic value of sacrificial love within family, echoing Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2214–2220) on duties of siblings and parents.
Truth vs. Deception:
- Much of the comedy comes from hiding the body and lying to protect reputations. Catholic teaching warns against falsehood (CCC 2464–2487). The chaos illustrates how deception multiplies problems, while truth ultimately restores order.
Dignity of Work & Social Justice:
- The labor dispute subplot highlights the importance of fair negotiation and patriotism. Catholic social teaching (e.g., Rerum Novarum) emphasizes the dignity of workers and the moral duty to seek just compromise. Tommy’s mediation echoes this principle.
Chastity & Proper Relationships:
- Charity’s flirtations with Tommy, contrasted with Hope’s genuine love, underscore the virtue of chastity (CCC 2337–2349). The film humorously but clearly affirms that authentic love requires fidelity and respect, not manipulation.
Redemption & Resurrection Imagery:
- The mediator’s revival from “suspended animation” can be read symbolically as a comic echo of resurrection—life restored when least expected. It reminds viewers of Christian hope in renewal and divine intervention.
📖 Takeaway
While Three Girls About Town is primarily screwball comedy, its deeper resonance lies in family sacrifice, honesty, justice in labor, and chastity in love. For Catholic reflection, it’s a reminder that even lighthearted stories can carry moral lessons when viewed through the lens of faith.
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