A Bologna Diary (4) - Discovering June Knight via E A Du Pont's LADIES MUST LOVE (USA, 1933)

June Knight, Ladies Must Love

I don’t think I’ve ever been aware of the actress June Knight before today.  But by early morning end I had glimpsed head the cast in E A Du Pont’s Ladies Must Love (USA, 1933), presented in the Junior Laemmle strand. The screening came straight after William K Howard’s The Power and the Glory to make it some kind of double bill, definitely worth the swelter in the sauna-like Jolly Cinema.

Ms Knight she sings two songs, the second of which comes just before the finale. It’s quite extraordinary, worthy of Frederick Hollander, and delivered by Knight in a perfect soprano. Moving beyond belief. Du Pont (as he is called on the credits here), had a chequered career roaming between Europe and the US. Dave Kehr’s program note suggests only this film and the 1951 noir The Scarf contain much of interest among his US output though there is a lost 1927 silent Love Me and the World is Mine made when the director’s reputation was at its highest.

June Knight, Neil Hamilton, Ladies Must Love

 As for June Knight who leads a cast of four sassy girls sharing an apartment and their incomes, she made ten more films, the last in 1940. She worked for A-List directors Rene Clair, Norman Z McLeod, George Fitzmaurice, Roy Del Ruth, Archie Mayo and Karl Freund among others. A subject for further research….