Adapted from the 1936 play of the same name, it tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a boarding house at 158 West 58th Street in New York City.

The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier, Andrea Leeds, Samuel S. Hinds and Lucille Ball.

Her polished manners and superior attitude make her no friends among the rest of the aspiring actresses living there, particularly her new roommate, flippant, cynical dancer Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers).

From Terry's expensive clothing and her photograph of her elderly grandfather, Jean assumes she has obtained the former from her sugar daddy, just as fellow resident Linda Shaw (Gail Patrick) has from her relationship with influential theatrical producer Anthony Powell (Adolphe Menjou).

Meanwhile, well-liked Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) had great success and rave reviews in a play the year before but has had no work since and is running out of money.

I carried them on my wedding day and now I place them here in memory of something that has died," are from The Lake (1934), the play for which Dorothy Parker panned Hepburn's performance as "running the gamut of emotions from A to B.

"[4] The movie has almost nothing to do with the play, except in a few character names, such as Kay Hamilton, Jean Maitland, Terry Randall, Linda Shaw, and Judith Canfield.

The reviewer in The Times wrote of January 3, 1938, after the film's London premiere at the Regal on December 31, 1937: Stories of life on the stage have always appealed to Hollywood: here success is sensational and meteoric, and failure equally sudden and dramatic.

We know the formula by heart, and expect of our entertainment that it shall be rowdy, aggressive, and spectacular, culminating in the rise of the central character to fame in the bright lights of Broadway.

However, as a result of the positive response to this performance, RKO immediately cast her opposite Cary Grant in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938).

[2] After Kay commits suicide, there is a brief shot of her grave as part of the montage of the success of the play, which was once edited out on all TV showings and is not in the original US VHS and Betamax releases.

Ginger Rogers and Adolphe Menjou reprised their roles from the film, while Rosalind Russell replaced Katharine Hepburn as Terry Randall.