Love in the Rough

"Love in the Rough" is a cute little comedy-musical with a golf club setting, starring a callow Robert Montgomery (who sings and dances!). The first hour is quite winning, though the plot bogs down a bit in the latter reels. There is a nice visual fade at the very end, so keep watching. The film has a surprising immediacy since it was filmed open-air on a real golf course rather than being studio-bound. And it provides a nice portrait of innocent courtship (just holding hands is considered pretty erotic).

The film is really a showcase for the comic talents of Benny Rubin, who is hoodwinked into being Montgomery's caddy. A lot of movie history books state that Rubin could not find work in the movies after the early 30s because he looked "too Jewish". Probably what they really mean is that his stereotypical Yiddish character (God-given looks included) was offensive. Of course, Chico Marx, Henry Armetta, Mantan Moreland, etc., got away with coarse ethnic stereotypes for years, so maybe he was really offensive to the moguls. Anyway, he has plenty of entertaining shtick to display in this picture, the highlight being a hilarious Yiddish palaver with another Jewish caddy. He's also menaced by a crude Italian greenskeeper. The politically incorrect portrayals are trumped by Roscoe Ates's incredible take on stuttering. In this movie, he takes his "art" to the extreme (he even gets Young's character to catch the bug). The dancing – much of it comedic – is fine, especially an interlude by one Earl "Snake Hips" Tucker.

One thing that really gets my goat is the writers' obvious ignorance of golf. They think that yelling "fore" means to be quiet, and that if an opponent's golf ball is blocking your putt, you have to putt around it! The latter leads to the climax, where the hero cleverly finds a way to overcome the obstacle.

Love In The Rough casts a young Robert Montgomery as a shipping clerk in J.C. Nugent's department store who happens to be a greatamateur golfer. Just the man to help Nugent with his game so he brings Montgomery alongt to his country club. There Montgomery meets and romances Dorothy Jordan who assumes he's as rich as all the others there.

This s a remake of William Haines's silent classic Spring Fever and it would have been a whole lot better without an incredibly insipid score from Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields. Made worse by the fact that neither Jordan or Montgomery could sing a lick.

No doubt that MGM saw in Montgomery someone wh could eplace Bill Hines and at the begnning of his career Montgomery was playing smart aleck parts like Haines. Either those or cads or punks. Montgomery was also safely straight in the studio's eyes and Haines was beginning to rebel against the studio enforced closet.

Love In The Rough would have been somuch better without the music.

Jack Kelly (Robert Montgomery) and his buddy Benny Leibowitz get in trouble with their boss, Mr. Waters. They get fired until Waters reveals that he desperately needs help with his golf game. Jack volunteers to help. Jack and Benny arrive at the country club. Jack is completely taken with wealthy wheat heiress Marilyn Crawford.

With the switch to talkies, there is a flood of musicals for the obvious reason. Not all of them are good. I really can't tell if the songs are any good. The white people do their white bread singing and flapper dancing. A few black folks add a dash of coloring. Well, the club is real and the exterior shots at Lake Norconian Club are grand. The comedy between Jack and Benny is mostly fine for old material although I'm not actually laughing. It's hard to grade sometimes. The romance is not much. I don't like when the actors become stationary. This is a lot of borderline takes.

Love in the Rough is a B comedy film starring Robert Montgomery before he attempted more serious films. It also features Benny Rubin, a talented Jewish comedian, who was far more successful in burlesque and vaudeville than in early Hollywood films. The plot of an office worker becoming a ringer in a golf foursome is fairly different from the norm, and the filming of the episodes in the open air, rather than a studio, gives it an air of authenticity.

After about forty minutes, however, the film begins to lose its energy, and bogs down quite a bit. The end result is a pleasant, but not too stimulating comedy that captures the mentality of the 1930s corporate mindset for impressing others at the club.

Robert Montgomery may be only a shipping clerk, but he's a fine golfer. So boss J. C. Nugent wangles his a one-week pass at his glf club so he can win against Edwards Davis. Montgomery and Davis' daughter, Dorothy Jordan fall in love. But she thinks he's an important executive. What will happen when she finds out the truth?

This sound remake of 1927's SPRING FEVER hasn't aged well, even if you think that snobbery, gold, Benny Rubin's yiddisher comedy and a not-so-sparkling set of songs by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh; judging by its constant repetition, Metro must have thought they had a hit in "Go Home And Tell Your Mother". The acting is actually pretty good, With Penny Singleton, Allan Lane, Roscoe Ates, Clarence Wilson, and Ann Dvorak somewhere in the chorus line.