Description

Are secretaries people? Vera Victoria Cameron, otherwise known as Vee Vee, thought they were something apart from the rest of the world and was sadly disillusioned when she was passed by for promotion because her boss was afraid of her.

A snappy young advertising man saw the real person behind Vee Vee's horn-rimmed spectacles and prim mannerisms and developed a plan for promoting the products of the Peach Cosmetics Company, with Vee Vee as the principal figure, that started plenty of action.

His ingenuity and imagination enable him to convert a rather drab girl almost overnight into a charming woman of poise and beauty and not unlike Frankenstein he was ensnared by his own creation. The result is a story that rivals Cinderella in its denouement.

With the heart theme never submerged, this modern tale makes you wonder if the modern Cinderella isn't a far more interesting character than her legendary sister.

Notes

First off, this is not a Cinderella story (much less Frankenstein): it's Pygmalion all the way. The MCs even refer to each other as that and Galatea. Vee Vee, as the most qualified applicant, is frustrated when the CEO of Peachtree doesn't offer her the position after his private secretary retires. He explains that he's old and she'll make him work too hard, and, instead, assigns her to their new advertising executive, Jerry Macklyn -- at 29, one of the top three admen in NY, with a salary of $25k ($450,000 in current-day dollars, per google). Big, red-headed, energetic, worked-his-way-up-from-the-Bronx Jerry -- whose favorite expression is "Judas Priest!" -- decides to make mousy Vee Vee's transformation the center of Peach Tree's new campaign. Glamorization effected, Vee Vee instantly cashes out her life savings and beelines to Lake Minnetonka, not to purify herself in the waters thereof, which would be only good and proper, but in pursuit of a man she'd seen once, in an elevator. At the lake, she's mistaken for a missing heiress (formerly, princess) and hijinks ensue. An ok story, interesting mainly for the explicitness with which the limitations faced by an intelligent, ambitious woman of the time are spelled out. What a man wants in a girl, and a secretary, Jerry tells her is "brains enough to conceal the fact that she has more brains than he has." Depressing. Also learned that Dollar Princess were the young late-19th, early 20th-century heiress-victims in wealthy American parents' cash-for-crowns (or, at least titles) schemes. Vee Vee is a penny princess, but if she'd actually had as many pennies as her look-alike had dollars ($40,000,000), she wouldn't have been too bad off, at that...

Flags: Typically uncomfortable depiction of male MC's Japanese butler. Brief reference to past parental physical abuse. During female MC's held-for-ransom captivity, attempted sexual assault.

Tags

1920s, American, United States, Northeast, advertising, beautiful/handsome, competent, determined, disciplined, efficient, f/m, family member, overshadowed by, female, hair, red, husky, identity, mistaken, intelligent, kidnapped, love at first sight, love over money, makeover, personal growth/becoming a better person, plain, rags to riches, rescue, riches to rags, robust, romance, secretary, single, strong, tall, third-person, workplace, young

Flags

insensitive racial/ethnic portrayal/stereotyping, sexual assault