SECRETS OF A SECRETARY (1931)

Irresistible romantic trash for Claudette Colbert as a fallen society gal whose carefree ways leave her married to fortune-hunting gigolo George Metaxa just as her ‘wealthy’ pop’s death reveals an empty bank balance.  Landing a job as social secretary to eccentric Mary Boland, Claudette’s just putting her life back in order when Boland’s daughter (Betty Lawford) starts cheating on charming British fiancé Herbert Marshall with Metaxa, separated but still married to Colbert.  Yikes!  Worse, Lord Marshall has fallen for Colbert.  (Talk about on-screen chemistry, these two on some kind of heavenly wavelength.)  And who could resist Colbert in those uncredited Travis Banton outfits.*  Note a meet-cute when fiancée Lawford is late to a formal dinner and Colbert briefly fills in before gracefully bowing out once her employee’s heartless daughter arrives.  But there’s more!  Metaxa, in debt to the mob even though he’s borrowed heavily from Lawford, is shot on the day of the wedding rehearsal.  And Lawford, in now bloodied wedding gown saved from social ruin by Colbert who insists they swap outfits so she can take all the blame and allow Marshall to go on with tomorrow’s wedding . . . to a woman he’ll never love.  Ridiculous as this all sounds, director George Abbott, in his last Hollywood shoot before returning to NYC for decades of stage hits, with a straightforward/no-frills style manages to keep it grounded and moving along in just 71".

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *But were the gowns Travis Banton?  And was the film shot in Hollywood as per IMDb?  Some of the technical work looks shoddy enough for Paramount's Astoria studios where Colbert had just made THE SMILING LIEUTENANT with Lubitsch and where Abbott would shortly direct Tallulah Bankhead in a pair of films before returning to B’way.

READ ALL ABOUT IT/DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: In his auto-bio MISTER ABBOTT, this film is conflated with MANSLAUGHTER of the year before.  (He mixes up Fredric March and Herbert Marshall.)  That film definitely shot in Hollywood and probably Abbott’s best on a technical level.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/04/manslaughter-1930.html