Paradise for Three

MGM certainly used a low budget to make PARADISE FOR THREE, and it shows when it comes to the outdoor winter scenes supposedly taking place on ski slopes at an Alpine resort. The use of process photography for all those mountain tops covered with snow is obvious.

Nor did they use a top cast but the results are splendid nevertheless.

An up and coming Robert Young has the star role of a contest winner who is mistakenly thought to be a millionaire by Herman Bing and Sig Rumann when he arrives at his destination at a swank hotel. He immediately attracts the attention of Mary Astor, hard on her luck as far as money is concerned and looking for an easy catch.

But the fun begins when Frank Morgan decides to check on how the hotel treats the lower class and finds himself mistaken for a mere contest winner without money. The pretty blond Florence Rice plays his daughter who naturally falls in love with penniless Robert Young, who doesn't know she's a rich girl until the final reel.

It's predictable and silly, with great support from Edna May Oliver as Morgan's housekeeper of thirty years who joins the group at the hotel to look out for Morgan's health and keeps an eye on his "woman trouble" with Astor. She makes the most of an amusing role in true Edna May Oliver fashion.

This is one that's little known today. To put it in context, it probably played the lower half of bills in the "double feature" days which is why I call it a programmer. I wouldn't be surprised if it's one of those B-films that surprised audiences by being more entertaining than the main feature, which happened occasionally.