''Servants' Entrance'' is a 1934 American

Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...

musical comedy Musical theatre is a form of theatre, theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, ...

film. It was written by Samson Raphaelson from the Sigrid Boo novel and directed by Frank Lloyd, with a

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...

sequence by

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney ( ; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the Golden age of American animation, American animation industry, he introduced several develop ...

in which an understandably startled Janet Gaynor sings a song while obstreperous animated singing silverware prance around on her bed, an early example of combining live action with

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

. Critics found this musical interlude especially charming.The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:''..Servants' Entrance''
/ref> This film was adapted from Sigrid Boo's 1930 Norwegian

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

''Vi som går kjøkkenveien'' (''"We Who Enter Through the Kitchen"'') which has an almost identical plot to Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd's popular 1917 novel ''How Could You, Jean?'', which had already been adapted into a film of the same name in 1918, directed by

William Desmond Taylor William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner; 26 April 1872 – 1 February 1922) was an Anglo-Irish-American film director and actor. A popular figure in the growing Cinema of the United States, Hollywood motion picture colony o ...

and starring

Mary Pickford Gladys Louise Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American film actress and producer. A Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood, pioneer in the American film industry with a Hollywood care ...

. ''Servants' Entrance'' plot was strikingly identical to that of the earlier film; as the ''New York Times'' commented, "apparently, the old Pickford comedy was already forgotten, and no copyright infringement suit was filed." An earlier film based on Sigrid Boo's novel was '' Servant's Entrance'' (1932), directed by Gustaf Molander in Sweden. The Swedish version starred Tutta Rolf, who became contracted to Fox Film in 1935.

Cast

* Janet Gaynor as Hedda Nilsson/Helga Brand *

Lew Ayres Lewis Frederick Ayres III (December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996) was an American actor whose film and television career spanned 65 years. He is best known for starring as German soldier Paul Bäumer in the film ''All Quiet on the Western Fro ...

as Erik Langstrom * Ned Sparks as Hjalmar Gnu * Walter Connolly as Viktor Nilsson * Louise Dresser as Mrs. Hanson * Astrid Allwyn as Sigrid Hanson * Sig Ruman as Hans Hansen * John Qualen as Detective * Catherine Doucet as Anastasia Gnu

References

External links

* 1934 films 1934 musical comedy films Fox Film films American black-and-white films American films with live action and animation American musical comedy films American remakes of Swedish films 1930s English-language films Films about maids Films based on Norwegian novels Films directed by Frank Lloyd Films directed by Walt Disney 1930s American films English-language musical comedy films Films with screenplays by Samson Raphaelson {{musical-comedy-film-stub