Honor Among Lovers

"I've been taking care of myself. Trying to recapture my lost youth. Exercise, you know? Seven beautiful thoughts before breakfast, bursting into song at unexpected moments. I'm a changed man."

Claudette Colbert is absolutely gorgeous and she plays her scenes of emotional conflict well, but the story has too many unpleasant aspects to truly like this film. Frederic March is an alpha businessman carrying on with a lot of women with no intentions of marrying (he calls the institution "bunk"). He puts the moves on his secretary (Colbert) and when she resists, he goes off to screw someone else for hours, missing an entire football game in the process. He can't stop thinking about his secretary, however, so Monday morning he says he'll marry her if it means that much to her, but when she informs him that she just got married (to a stock broker played by Monroe Owsley), he fires her on the spot despite her stellar performance in the office. And this, naturally, is ultimately going go to be the protagonist, helped along by his impossible-to-believe transformation and an all-too-convenient implosion from the stock broker.

Had it gone in a different direction at a few moments in the story, including late when a somewhat surprising event occurs, it could have been brilliant, but the film plays it safe, and didn't really feel pre-Code. The virtuous woman never gives in to premarital sex, the womanizing alpha male should have been her choice all along because he's successful and can be trusted to do the right thing (ha!), and divorce is justified by an avalanche of reprehensible things the husband does. These are cartoon characters. On top of it, the small part of a dimwitted woman (Ginger Rogers, argh) is spoken to like a child each time she's on the screen. But hey, it's worth seeing for Colbert.

In this romantic melodrama from Paramount Pictures and director Dorothy Arzner, Claudette Colbert stars as Julia Traynor, secretary to wealthy business mogul Jerry Stafford (Fredric March). The two work great together, but when Jerry reveals that he has romantic feelings for her, Julia states that she has a boyfriend, Philip (Monroe Owsley), and that they are to be married. After some time in drunken commiseration with his dissolute pal Monty (Charlie Ruggles), Jerry comes to accept the union of Julia and Philip, and even allows Philip to invest money for him, which leads to problems for everyone. Also featuring Pat O'Brien in his feature debut.

This is light on plot and style, and its appeal rests with the performers, all of whom are good, although Owsley makes one wonder what Colbert saw in him. Ginger Rogers is amusing as a dim-bulb chipper companion of Ruggles. This marked one of the first appearances of March's mustache.

You might think that one of those early 1930s 'women's films' about a girl who marries the wrong man is not for you? Don't think that - this is brilliant! OK, essentially it is just a trashy soap but it's fantastic - honestly!

So why would a Cagney fan watch this? It's made for women, it's written by a woman, directed by a woman and staring THE woman of the 1930s. This isn't the usual type of movie I'd consider watching but because I'm weirdly infatuated with Claudette Colbert I gave it a go. So glad I did! It might be because I wasn't expecting much but I found this absolutely enthralling.

For a film made in 1931, it's extraordinarily well made and the acting is outstanding. We've got none of that theatrical, silent movie type over-gesturing or gazing wistfully into the camera which plagued many early 1930s pictures - this has naturalistic acting and realistic, believable real characters.

The story is nothing original - a pretty girl, chased by two men marries the wrong one. It's not however a sickly sweet romantic melodrama (like one of those mushy Kay Francis films), no, this works so well because its two leads are so utterly real and likeable. You become totally engaged with the romantic dilemmas and emotional traumas of Colbert and March. They're both so natural and real, avoiding the usual clichéd stereotypes.

Claudette Colbert is dazzling, her perfectly well developed character is flirty and bubbly but also sensible and intelligent. Fredric March, playing a millionaire isn't the usual over entitled cad, he's charming and suave but he's also sensitive and a genuinely really nice guy. Dorothy Arzner's supporting cast also give refreshingly proper performances as well portraying real people: Charlie Ruggles plays his usual inebriated friend and Ginger Rogers, still in her 'Betty Boop' phase is fun.

This has a much more modern feel to it than a lot of early 30s films whilst still retaining that naive charm of the era. It's 100% entertaining.

Easily the least of the early Dorothy Arzner's I have so far seen, 'Honor Among Lovers' doesn't begin to deliver the saucy preCode frolics promised by the title, and the presence early on of a pert young Ginger Rogers raises expectations soon dashed.

Claudette Colbert gets top billing but bears little resemblance to the sleek screen goddess she would soon become. Typically of Ms Arzner the men are a sorry lot - Monroe Owsley in particular being an absolutely charmless creep as Claudette's lawful wedded (heaven knows what she ever saw in him in the first place) - while Fredric March - who sports a distracting moustache - despite playing a hot shot investment broker shows far more interest in courting the married Colbert than in his job.

Another ponderous example of Arzner's apparent disdain for men and marriage. (Either good men turn bad or bad men reform only through the love of a good woman.) The film does contain a few, as Billy Wilder would say, "drop the popcorn bag" moments, to its credit; but overall, it's a dark, unimaginative story, painted with the very broad strokes and heavy hand of the director.

A virtue, since Pre-Code, it treats illicit love and extra-marital affairs with a refreshing boldness; yet pre-1960s, it manages to retain that "Golden Era" emphasis on romance to the extent that its plot allows.

But the acting here is the redeeming feature. Claudette Colbert, true to form, quietly smolders as a private secretary-cum-wife caught between the romantic propositions of two businessmen. Fredric March is surprisingly convincing as both a jilted playboy and the turned-better hero. One of the most fantastic pieces of acting I've seen involves a scene between them, where married Colbert again rejects -- though with great desire to do otherwise -- his now-honorable, but extra-marital advances. The film is worth seeing just for this scene.

The supporting cast ranges widely. Owsley delivers a snicker-worthy portrayal of the "other man", but Charlie Ruggles and Ginger Rogers take in his supporting slack with hilarious style.