A vintage Hollywood movie I must admit I'd never heard of before that I was pleased to catch on very early morning terrestrial TV, helmed by a celebrated director, Lewis Milestone and boasting two top stars in Ronald Colman and Ginger Rogers. Shame it was something of a let-down.
It starts nicely enough with a fortuitous meeting between Colman and Rogers after the latter has started her mundane work day by receiving a gift of an expensive coat and benefits again from a lottery tip-off from Colman's David Grant character. I hoped it would continue the theme of fortuitous events happening throughout the film but unfortunately the film goes downhill from there with Colman's somewhat mysterious beachcomber character propositioning Rogers to accompany him on a trip to Niagara, coming between her and her boorish fiancé played by Jack Carson, in the process.
So the mismatched couple, booked in as brother and sister, naturally end up in adjoining rooms in a posh hotel, before the fiancé turns up to make trouble for them which eventually sees them all end up on trial in a lengthy concluding courtroom scene for various minor misdemeanours, only for true love to conquer all, as Colman is revealed to be a reclusive famous artist in hiding after an apparently infamous trial about the morality of some of his earlier work.
I know screwball comedies are meant to throw together unlikely individuals, be based on threadbare plots and large coincidence and be fast-paced and full of wisecracks but the most important of these, the last, just isn't delivered here. Poor Ginger, only recently on leave from years as old Fred's girl, has to canoodle with another much older man and good-looking and suave on the face of it as he is, you can't describe Colman's character as anything other than weird and one that a single woman most probably shouldn't let be her chaperone. That said her boyfriend Carson hardly seems like a catch either, being the brusque, money-grabbing, controlling type.
There are some eccentrics dotted about in the background too like the two stereotypical Italian restaurateurs in whose eaterie they first meet, an odd selection of hotel employees, a strange elderly couple who Rogers christens Peter Possum and Jenny Wren who in truth can't be that much older than Colman even as they rhapsodise about the younger duo personifying love's young dream and finally a long-winded judge at the trial, but Preston Sturges this definitely isn't. All the explanations for Colman's odd-ball behaviour are held back until the last reel and then delivered in an unconvincing hurry at the same time as we're expected to believe in the even more unlikely romance of the two leads.
What more to say, well, Rogers looks lovely, especially in her evening gown although unfortunately she stops short of actually dancing even a few steps, Colman is certainly smooth if lacking warmth and director Milestone has some nice touches like a scene showing both sides of the dividing doors as the couple argue and the courtroom scene where he shows successive witnesses sat in the same seat giving their testimony, but it has to be said, it's all rather dull, with no real laughs, curiously uninvolving characters and on the whole adds up to a lot less than the sum of its parts.
It starts nicely enough with a fortuitous meeting between Colman and Rogers after the latter has started her mundane work day by receiving a gift of an expensive coat and benefits again from a lottery tip-off from Colman's David Grant character. I hoped it would continue the theme of fortuitous events happening throughout the film but unfortunately the film goes downhill from there with Colman's somewhat mysterious beachcomber character propositioning Rogers to accompany him on a trip to Niagara, coming between her and her boorish fiancé played by Jack Carson, in the process.
So the mismatched couple, booked in as brother and sister, naturally end up in adjoining rooms in a posh hotel, before the fiancé turns up to make trouble for them which eventually sees them all end up on trial in a lengthy concluding courtroom scene for various minor misdemeanours, only for true love to conquer all, as Colman is revealed to be a reclusive famous artist in hiding after an apparently infamous trial about the morality of some of his earlier work.
I know screwball comedies are meant to throw together unlikely individuals, be based on threadbare plots and large coincidence and be fast-paced and full of wisecracks but the most important of these, the last, just isn't delivered here. Poor Ginger, only recently on leave from years as old Fred's girl, has to canoodle with another much older man and good-looking and suave on the face of it as he is, you can't describe Colman's character as anything other than weird and one that a single woman most probably shouldn't let be her chaperone. That said her boyfriend Carson hardly seems like a catch either, being the brusque, money-grabbing, controlling type.
There are some eccentrics dotted about in the background too like the two stereotypical Italian restaurateurs in whose eaterie they first meet, an odd selection of hotel employees, a strange elderly couple who Rogers christens Peter Possum and Jenny Wren who in truth can't be that much older than Colman even as they rhapsodise about the younger duo personifying love's young dream and finally a long-winded judge at the trial, but Preston Sturges this definitely isn't. All the explanations for Colman's odd-ball behaviour are held back until the last reel and then delivered in an unconvincing hurry at the same time as we're expected to believe in the even more unlikely romance of the two leads.
What more to say, well, Rogers looks lovely, especially in her evening gown although unfortunately she stops short of actually dancing even a few steps, Colman is certainly smooth if lacking warmth and director Milestone has some nice touches like a scene showing both sides of the dividing doors as the couple argue and the courtroom scene where he shows successive witnesses sat in the same seat giving their testimony, but it has to be said, it's all rather dull, with no real laughs, curiously uninvolving characters and on the whole adds up to a lot less than the sum of its parts.