Archived Movie Review: FORTY NAUGHTY GIRLS (1937).

FORTY NAUGHTY GIRLS. RKO Radio Pictures, 1937. James Gleason (Inspector Oscar Piper), Zasu Pitts (Hildegarde Withers), Marjorie Lord, Joan Woodbury, Tom Kennedy. Based on story and/or characters created by Stuart Palmer. Director: Edward Cline. Nothing naughty about this movie at all. What this is instead is the last of the Hildegarde Withers movies, as she and Inspector Piper solve the murders committed backstage while a musical is going on. We see a lot of legs but nothing more. Zasu Pitts, the last of three actresses to play Miss Withers, cuts down on her usual flutter and settles for mere clumsiness instead, while Gleason acts like he’s auditioning for the Three Stooges, This does mark the first use of the nitrate test in the movies, though. — Reprinted from Movie.File.2, April 1988.