Maybe It's Love

"Titanic" actress Gloria Stuart is one of the stars of "Maybe It's Love," a 1935 comedy from Warners based on the Maxwell Anderson play "Saturday's Children" and remade in 1940. Stuart was then 25 years old; big fame would elude her until 62 years later.

Here, she's a secretary, Bobby, in love with Rims (Ross Alexander) who doesn't declare himself. To move things along, she pretends to be interested in another man, Adolph Jr. (Phillip Reed) to make him jealous.

Bobby and Rims marry, but find the going difficult. Bobby's big family (Frank McHugh, Ruth Donnelly, Helen Lowell, and Henry Travers) always seems to be around, and they're having trouble making ends meet. The two separate.

This movie has a lot of warmth and charm, but it's not exactly original. The pretty Stuart was a fresh, amiable actress. Phillip Reed at some angles looks like Tyrone Power - the hair, the hairline, the eyebrows, even the clothes, though he wasn't anywhere near as handsome. Ross Alexander, in the role played on Broadway by Humphrey Bogart, is cute with a real character face. Such a short, sad life, it was almost hard to watch him. Frank McHugh and the rest of the cast were delightful.

The movie is short and was probably cut, due to what looks like an editing problem - the couple goes from being in love to breaking up -- it really seems like something was left out.

See it for the cast.

Classic young lover's making the mistakes, young marriage couple's make. I love the car's from the late 20's used in the filming. Fred McHugh, Ruth Donnelly plus Henry Travers the fellow that played the angel in It's a Wonderful Life. Great movie !

MAYBE IT'S LOVE, a 1935 programmer, was taken from Maxwell Anderson's early success SATURDAY'S CHILDREN which starred Ruth Gordon and (late in the run) Humphrey Bogart at the Booth and Forrest Theatres for 326 performances from 26Jan1927 to April1928. The resemblance of the film's "Rims," Ross Alexander, to the very young Bogart is a delightful plus to a film possibly best remembered today as a vehicle for the young Gloria Stuart - of TITANIC fame late in life as Alexander's love interest.

Given the play's success - establishing Maxwell Anderson's reputation on Broadway - it is remarkable that it took this many years into the sound era for Warner Brothers to get around to using it as grist for their mill (changing the title and the character names along the way as if to disguise the origins). For a plot (up and coming boy and boss's handsome son wrangle over the affections of boss's secretary set against the background of the secretary's parents and meddling sister) which remains mild even after the ministrations of the usual crew of three Hollywood screenwriters, there are a bountiful hour (and three minute)'s charm, banter and surprises.

Don't expect a 21st Century comedy, but as a fairly honest portrait of a bygone era when Saturday wasn't a day off but a standard half day, with classic performances from the Warner Brothers' stock company (comedians like Frank McHugh and Henry Travers) and the ghost of a pre-Hollywood Bogart performance, MAYBE IT'S LOVE is hard to beat.

One would never suspect that this little domestic comedy comes from the pen of Maxwell Anderson, since it's no more than a typical piece of Depression-era fluff about money and finances being the root of most domestic squabbles.

Lovely GLORIA STUART (so beautiful in her prime) and ungainly ROSS Alexander (he never made it to stardom) are the leads and the supporting cast is a pleasant one filled with Warner contract players. But it's PHILLIP REED, as a rich man's playboy son, who should have had the romantic lead opposite Stuart, looking like a Tyrone Power clone, and not a bad actor at all.

HENRY TRAVERS, RUTH DONNELLY, FRANK McHUGH and others are well used, with McHugh being much less obnoxious than usual in his more subdued comedy role as Donnelly's husband.

It starts out briskly, with a lot of talk about "the situation in Europe" and "how Europe is making out" as part of the breakfast talk, so it seems that it's going to be a better than usual domestic tale that raises some serious issues. But before it's midway through, it gets stuck in a rut as no more than an office romance that ends in marriage but quickly falls into silly lover's spats and quarrels over finances and the inability to "live on a budget".

From that midway point on, it descends into a trivial domestic comedy with pat situations complete with a cornball ending that reunites the lovers under trying circumstances.

Summing up: Not worth the trouble. I note from another comment that this became a remake called "Saturday's Children" in the '40s with John Garfield, Ann Shirley and Claude Rains.

Trivia note: Ross Alexander was an up and coming Warner contract player who appeared the same year in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Captain Blood" and was being considered for bigger roles, but he committed suicide two years later over problems with his marriage and rumors of his homosexuality which the studio tried to suppress.

"Maybe It's Love" is a strange little Depression-era film...one that was later remade as "Saturday's Children". It's strange because it seems to say that poverty will destroy marriages...but during the Depression nearly everyone was poor and they somehow managed to muddle through and live their lives.

Bobby and Rims (Rims???) have been dating for some time and seem to love each other. But when their boss brings his ne'er do well son into the company, he pays a lot of attention to Bobby (it's s SHE) and Rims gets jealous. In fact, again and again, they argue and they settled all this by getting married. Not the smartest reason to marry, I know. Well, after marrying Rims insists (insanely) that she stay home and not work...which might have made sense if they had any kids...though they didn't. Pressures besiege them and the marriage falls apart.

I felt very lukewarm about this film....mostly because the couple's problems didn't seem that difficult to overcome. Had the wife simply gone back to work (at least until they had kids) so many of their problems wouldn't have existed. And, it also is difficult to love the film when BOTH Bobby and Rim were easy to dislike. Overall, a mildly interesting film that could have easily been better....same with the later remake.