Where is Carvel?
1 March 2014
Robert Taylor as a romantic leading man is just as much at home with comedy as he is with melodrama, war films and westerns. Janet Gaynor is superb and it's interesting to note that Jean Harlow was the first choice, because that would have given this picture an entirely different flavor.

And here's an interesting bit of trivia: there are more than a few connections to MGM's popular Andy Hardy. The small town that Gaynor's character comes from is called Carvel. The stage play that served as the basis for the Hardy series set the action in a fictitious Idaho town called Carvel, but in most of the Andy Hardy movies, the location is much more generalized and is basically Carvel, USA. But in this film, it is clearly established that Carvel is in the east. Road signs during one of the scenes indicate that Carvel is 97 miles from Boston.

Janet Gaynor would re-team with director William Wellman for A Star Is Born. Meanwhile, MGM would remake this film in 1953, with musical scenes, starring Ann Blyth and Farley Granger.
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