A Night at the Ritz

Name: A Night at the Ritz
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1935-03-23
Duration: 1 h 2 min
Rating: 5.3
Cast: William Gargan, Patricia Ellis, Allen Jenkins

IMDb RATING

5.3/10

128

YOUR RATING

Patricia Ellis, William Gargan, and Erik Rhodes in A Night at the Ritz (1935)

Comedy

Duke Regan is the high-pressure, irresponsible promotions/marketing/press agent at the Ritz Hotel. He gets the taste of the home cooking, done by the mother of Marcia Jaynos, but thinks it w... Read allDuke Regan is the high-pressure, irresponsible promotions/marketing/press agent at the Ritz Hotel. He gets the taste of the home cooking, done by the mother of Marcia Jaynos, but thinks it was done by her brother, Leopold. Leopold has delusions of being a great chef, and the abil... Read allDuke Regan is the high-pressure, irresponsible promotions/marketing/press agent at the Ritz Hotel. He gets the taste of the home cooking, done by the mother of Marcia Jaynos, but thinks it was done by her brother, Leopold. Leopold has delusions of being a great chef, and the ability to delude Duke into the same, even to the point of selling him to the Ritz as a famous... Read all

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.3/10

128

YOUR RATING

6User reviews

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos9

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Storyline

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Trivia
The $200 that Duke gets for 2 weeks' salary would be equivalent to $3,888 in 2021.

Quotes
Café Cook: [as Leopold is just showing up for work] About time you showed up.
Leopold Jaynos: Punctuality, my friend, was invented for slaves.

Soundtracks
Let It Be Me
(uncredited)
Music by Allie Wrubel
Played during the opening credits and at the end

User reviews6

Review

Featured review

3/10

Having an obnoxious leading character isn't a plus!

William Gargan plays Duke Regan, a schemer who is generally obnoxious and looking for his next scheme. He's also a bit of a pig when it comes to women, yet, oddly, Marcia Jaynos (Patricia Ellis) falls for his lines....and it's really hard to see why. Regardless, having such a jerk as the main character in "A Night at the Ritz" certainly makes it a tough sell.

When the story begins, you see Duke making some passes at Marcia...and he won't take no for an answer. He invites himself to her house for dinner and apparently his boorish ways have worn her down and she agrees to bring him home for a home cooked dinner. It turns out to be amazing food and Duke incorrectly assumes Marcia's brother cooked it, though Leopold has zero talent when it comes to cooking. Without even telling anyone his newest scheme, he rushes from their apartment and goes to the Ritz to sell them on Leopold as their new head chef. What's to come of all this? Watch it...or don't.

To say that Duke is hard to like is putting it very mildly. He comes off as a know-it-all, much like many of Lee Tracy's characters...but untalented. He talks a mile a minute and is about as honest as a $4 bill. So why would you want to watch him for an hour during this B-movie from Warner Brothers? I know I didn't enjoy the 62 minutes....which felt much, much longer. It's funny, as the film isn't terrible but Duke is such a jerk I had a hard time caring about the other characters.

By the way, why does Leopold have a HEAVY foreign accent while Marcia, his sister, sounds 100% American? And, why didn't someone at Warner Brothers seem to notice this??