Stage Door/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Adaptation Displacement: Though based on a well-regarded play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, the movie is better known today.
    • Part of that is due to how much of the play was changed for the movie; Kaufman at one point retorted, "Why don't they just call it "Screen Door"? But he eventually admitted the movie was better.
  • Foe Yay: Jean and Linda.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Kaye is supposed to be the best actress in the club (she had starred in a play for Anthony Powell the year before), yet we never see her act or audition in the movie, so at first, this might seem like a case of Informed Ability. But then, we see how good she's been at keeping secret how poor she is (to the point she isn't eating any meals), at least until she faints at Powell's office.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jean and Linda both lean towards this; both are snappish to each other, and we see them snappish towards Anthony Powell; in addition, while Linda doesn't treat Harcourt very well, Jean isn't very nice towards Terry, or Judy's dates. However, they're both extremely fond of Kaye, and are both devastated when she kills herself.
  • Memetic Mutation: "The cala lilies are in bloom again" became a favorite of Hepburn imitators.
    • Hilarious in Hindsight: That line was lifted from the play "The Lake", a play Hepburn had appeared in on Broadway, and which was a flop (it's the one about which Dorothy Parker said Hepburn's expressions ran the gamut from A to B).
  • Tear Jerker: Kaye's suicide. Also, Terry's curtain speech, and Terry and Jean reconciling.
  • The Woobie: Kaye.