Lady for a Day

Lady for a Day (1933) is a Frank Capra comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. On a cold Christmas season in New York, a street vendor named Apple Annie sells fruit on the corner — and writes letters home pretending to be a wealthy society lady.

The lie has held for years because her daughter Louise grew up far away in a Spanish convent, believing her mother is the refined Mrs. E. Worthington Manville. Now Louise is sailing to New York with a fiancé and his title-hungry nobleman father in tow. Annie panics. Enter Dave the Dude, a superstitious gambler who rents a grand apartment, dresses panhandlers as butlers and counts, and turns a broke apple seller into a genuine grande dame for a few impossible days. May Robson plays Annie; Warren William is Dave.

This was the film that put Capra on the map, drawing four Academy Award nominations, among them Best Picture and Best Director. Adapted from a Damon Runyon story, it's a fairy tale about con artists and beggars pooling their luck for someone else's happiness — and Capra liked it enough to remake it himself decades later as Pocketful of Miracles. Warm without going saccharine. Stream Lady for a Day (1933) online on iFILM.