Review of Should Ladies Behave

What we have here is a mildly amusing comedy of manners. After an opening sequence borrowed from Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion with the juvenile hunting for an after-theater taxicab in the rain, the movie settles down into the rigorous confines of the original stage play. Admittedly, there are some extremely long takes, but otherwise the direction is unobtrusive, all our attention being focused on the players. Alas, Comway Tearle is as wet as a mud-hen, and fluffs almost all his chances of garnering laughs, but everyone else tries hard – perhaps too hard! Anyway, the Twenty Questions scene is mildly amusing, and Lionel Barymore (who seems to be modeling his performance on Ernest Torrence's acting in M-G-M's Strictly Unconventional) gets a few laughs elsewhere as well. The rest of the players are not too bad. True, fifth-billed Mary Carlisle seems both a bit on the plump side and far too old for our female juvenile. This is one of the very few M-G-M movies that caries no Art Director credit for Cedric Gibbons. In fact, it doesn't look like an M-G-M movie at all.