Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

This RKO production about young ladies making their way through a stuffy Manhattan finishing school tries its darndest to be a drag, particularly when it focuses on Frances Dee and her involvement with Bruce Cabot’s sturdy do-gooder. (He helps crippled children, if you can believe that.) But it’s worth watching for Ginger Rogers, who is captured at the height of her Ginger-ness. (The movie was released in 1934, around the time she became a superstar with “The Gay Divorcee.”) The screenplay provides her with plenty of opportunities to crack wise in her singularly dry manner. When she wants to impugn the quality of the men present at a chaperoned dance, she says, “If you took all the hair off their combined chests you wouldn’t have enough to make a wig for a grape.” Most of the repartee among the girls is nicely handled, with lots of camera movement and editing that is often a step ahead of your expectations. (Co-director George Nicholls, Jr. got his start as an editor.) In some ways it feels like a dry run for the classic “Stage Door,” which replaces the too-moist Dee with Katharine Hepburn, Rogers’ antithesis and an opponent she can really charge into. Towards the end of the movie Dee’s plight turns campy: she begins to contemplate suicide when her teacher discusses “Anna Karenina.” Money quote: “I will now dispose of Tolstoy and his works in a few brief words.” Billie Burke is sprightly and satirical as Dee’s pampered, motor-mouthed mother.

“Finishing School” is available to stream via Warner Archive Instant.