It does not take long for the 2022 viewer of this 1935 film to realize that he or she has been plunged into an alternate universe to today's world (and probably to 1935's as well), a place where white European immigrants to these shores are treated like current Mexicans and Guatemalans and where large swaths of Manhattan are given over to the working class with members of the NYPD as their kindly, benevolent protectors! Truly breathtaking, and I might have wanted to linger if not wallow in this fantasyland were it not for Francis Lederer and his most irksome habit of embracing the wide eyed and the declamatory in his acting style. Made me wonder what Ginger Rogers, who is as usual wonderful but unfortunately drowned out by the loud, naive lug, sees in him. Glad they only made one picture tother. C plus.
Review of Romance in Manhattan
