I was so prepared to fall in love with this film, after hearing glowing remarks about it from other people. So I sat down to watch, expecting a real precode treat, and what I saw was a very unrealistic and rather silly scenario of two women appearing to like each other, one who is married and has children (Ann Harding) by the other lady's publisher (Frank Morgan), while he conducts a secret affair with the writer (Myrna Loy). Sound complicated and sleazy already? You're starting to get the picture.
Bob Montgomery plays a real airhead here and I had no patience with him. He is in love with the Myrna Loy writer character who is having the affair with the married man, and is low down enough to bring the publisher's unsuspecting wife to the trysting place of her husband and his paramour, knowing that eventually there will be a major confrontation and people he supposedly likes will be hurt. I usually love Bob Montgomery, but he really tried my patience here with this character. He behaves like a spoiled kid who whines because he can't have a lollipop he's always wanted. I also usually love Myrna Loy, but her character here was an idiot. I kept talking to her through the screen, "Wake up! You know you don't really believe all this 'live and let live' nonsense you're spouting." (Yes, I know, I'm losing it, talking to dead actors on a screen, but hey, it takes all kinds to make a world). ;)
Ann Harding was the only one who showed some dignity in this story, and I enjoyed her performance. One wonders how her character was so stupid to marry this publisher in the first place though.
Comic relief was also supplied by fruitcake Alice Brady and her ever-present, obvious lover, the piano player Walter (played delightfully by an actor named Martin Burton, who had me giggling like crazy; would love to see more of his work).
7 out of 10.
Bob Montgomery plays a real airhead here and I had no patience with him. He is in love with the Myrna Loy writer character who is having the affair with the married man, and is low down enough to bring the publisher's unsuspecting wife to the trysting place of her husband and his paramour, knowing that eventually there will be a major confrontation and people he supposedly likes will be hurt. I usually love Bob Montgomery, but he really tried my patience here with this character. He behaves like a spoiled kid who whines because he can't have a lollipop he's always wanted. I also usually love Myrna Loy, but her character here was an idiot. I kept talking to her through the screen, "Wake up! You know you don't really believe all this 'live and let live' nonsense you're spouting." (Yes, I know, I'm losing it, talking to dead actors on a screen, but hey, it takes all kinds to make a world). ;)
Ann Harding was the only one who showed some dignity in this story, and I enjoyed her performance. One wonders how her character was so stupid to marry this publisher in the first place though.
Comic relief was also supplied by fruitcake Alice Brady and her ever-present, obvious lover, the piano player Walter (played delightfully by an actor named Martin Burton, who had me giggling like crazy; would love to see more of his work).
7 out of 10.