Miracle On Main Street, put out by an independent studio, which was later bought up by Columbia, is an unusual film even for 1939 (one of the best years for Hollywood movies ever). The stars were Margo (best known for a role in Lost Horizon and for being the niece of Xavier Cugat and wife of Eddie Albert), Lyle Talbot (as usual playing a bad guy), and Walter Abel, Jane Darwell, and William Collier Sr.
The story was about an "Exotic Dancer" (Margo) and con-artist (Lyle) whose small illicit dance venue is raided by police, a couple who are then separated, and while escaping, the girl seeks shelter in a Roman Catholic Church, and sees a baby dressed in swaddling blankets abandoned on the altar. She uses the baby as cover to look like a young mother to escape the church which the police have surrounded. She takes the baby home and promptly falls in love with it (can't say I blame her, the baby was adorable!), and passes him off as her own child. She abandons her sinful life and becomes a seamstress to support herself and the child, and then graduates to becoming a designer of clothes as well.
She meets Walter Abel on the rebound from his divorce and he falls for her and even likes the baby as well. It looks like her life will turn out great but then Lyle comes back, demanding money before he can go away again. Margo is forced to ask it from Walter, using a lie that the baby is sick, but when he finds out about her lie and her former lifestyle will he break off their relationship?
Jane Darwell plays the landlady and Collier plays a drunken doctor who lives in the same apartment complex and befriends her.
I think this would be a nice film to re-watch around Christmastime. I liked the themes of turning from sin to find a better life for oneself, and showing that true love can prevail, but only if honesty is at the core of a relationship.
The story was about an "Exotic Dancer" (Margo) and con-artist (Lyle) whose small illicit dance venue is raided by police, a couple who are then separated, and while escaping, the girl seeks shelter in a Roman Catholic Church, and sees a baby dressed in swaddling blankets abandoned on the altar. She uses the baby as cover to look like a young mother to escape the church which the police have surrounded. She takes the baby home and promptly falls in love with it (can't say I blame her, the baby was adorable!), and passes him off as her own child. She abandons her sinful life and becomes a seamstress to support herself and the child, and then graduates to becoming a designer of clothes as well.
She meets Walter Abel on the rebound from his divorce and he falls for her and even likes the baby as well. It looks like her life will turn out great but then Lyle comes back, demanding money before he can go away again. Margo is forced to ask it from Walter, using a lie that the baby is sick, but when he finds out about her lie and her former lifestyle will he break off their relationship?
Jane Darwell plays the landlady and Collier plays a drunken doctor who lives in the same apartment complex and befriends her.
I think this would be a nice film to re-watch around Christmastime. I liked the themes of turning from sin to find a better life for oneself, and showing that true love can prevail, but only if honesty is at the core of a relationship.