After her 1934 annus mirabilis (IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT; CLEOPATRA; IMITATION OF LIFE), Claudette Colbert hit the top-ten list in 1935 & ‘36, more often than not in reliable (rather than inspired) romantic comedies like this, playing the default character home studio Paramount had developed for her: wealthy society type suddenly gone cash poor. In those Depression days, it served as a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too persona, giving Colbert by design or accident a perfect excuse to look richly chic yet still relatable to the masses. It could even, on occasion, rise to greatness (see Preston Sturges’s THE PALM BEACH STORY/’42). Here, it’s pleasantly serviceable. Waking up to a cut staff in the family manse, Claudette goes job hunting. Clueless and skill-less about the workforce, her ace in the hole is longtime beau Robert Young. He’s starting up a Men’s Magazine with a 3.5 mill. inheritance and current bodyguard/former journalist Fred MacMurray as editor. (Baby boomers note: this ain’t your MY THREE SONS MacMurray, but a nearly unrecognizable stud. Young also very fit & toned. Colbert, of course, famously looked nearly the same - wonderful - over six decades.) The gimmick, as if you hadn’t already guessed, is that Young has been proposing to Colbert since they were eight, but as soon as the bickering starts between MacMurray & Colbert, she only has eyes for Fred. (And you thought Paramount would let M-G-M loan-out leading-man Young prevail over two long term contract stars? Journeyman director Wesley Ruggles runs a smooth show, but more distinctive contributions come via cinematographer Leo Tover's dark glowing interiors and from costume designer Travis Banton.*
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: To see Paramount go off auto-pilot on this kind of romantic trio: Ernest Lubitsch & Ben Hecht’s reworking of Noël Coward’s DESIGN FOR LIVING/’33 with Gary Cooper, Fredric March & Miriam Hopkins. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/01/design-for-living-1933.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *While Columbia was too cheap to splurge on Banton for Capra’s IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, Colbert did make it happen at Universal in John Stahl’s IMITATION OF LIFE.