Did they realize their film so closely paralleled A Streetcar Named Desire?
Since Streetcar had had such an immense impact on the culture, I can only imagine that everyone involved with the film knew that it had been inspired by that Tennessee Williams’ classic. Certainly, some of the reviewers recognized the connections. DD never had her Kitty Foyle (Rogers’ Oscar-winning role). Rogers broke away from Fred Astaire for 10 years (until a final reunion in 1949 with The Barkleys of Broadway). Everyone in Hollywood thought she’d fall flat on her face, yet just the opposite occurred. Was DD denied a similar opportunity by her husband/manager Martin Melcher, who made her adhere to a “girl-next-door” image long after it had any validity? The notion of Day’s image as “the girl next door” is one of the most important aspects of her life, and therefore, of the biography. Throughout her career, Day would vacillate between saying that she never knew where that image came from and then, acknowledging it was there, saying she needed to sustain it, otherwise, she would disap
