It's Love I'm After

While Bette Davis and Leslie Howard are amusing as two battling lovers who also happen to be ham actors, the surprise of this little comedy is Olivia de Havilland as the moonstruck girl with a crush on matinée idol Basil Underwood (Howard). De Havilland never had a better ingenue role and she makes the most of it. Amusing to note that three years later she and Howard would be paired as Melanie and Ashley in 'Gone with the Wind'. Strange that previous comments fail to even mention her presence in this film! Even Bette Davis admitted that de Havilland had the better role with more footage--and claimed to dislike the film. However, all three leads are excellent--with Eric Blore stealing scenes as the butler frequently told by Leslie Howard to "Pack my bags!" Bonita Granville is rather irritating as de Havilland's brat sister and Spring Byington is her usual chipper self. Patric Knowles, as de Havilland's boyfriend and ultimate love partner, is wonderful in his amusing role as the man who sets the whole plot into action. Catch this one on Turner Classic Movies if you can. It's well worth it. Leslie Howard shows a real flair and delight in playing his ham actor--one of his finest comedy roles. A highlight is a confrontation between him and de Havilland when she declares: "I was in love with Clark Gable last year. If I can get over him, I can certainly get over you!" Screwball comedies don't get any better than this!

A very young Bette Davis is again paired with Leslie Howard, this time in a delightful, frothy comedy about battling theatrical costars. Supposedly the couple was based on Lunt and Fontanne, but I suspect there's a little influence from "Private Lives" as well.

Howard is a riot as the outrageous, narcissistic actor who can't stop getting women to fall in love with him, and Davis is a beautiful spitfire as his costar/fiancé.

Olivia deHavilland is the sweet young thing in this and she's lovely as a starry-eyed woman who thinks she's in love with Howard. Eric Blore is Howard's hapless manservant, and he's hilarious.

This is such a wonderful, witty movie, the kind, alas, that had its heyday in the '30 and '40s and is no more. The beginning scenes, with the two on stage in Romeo and Juliet, whispering insults, is especially funny. It's great to see such a young Davis and deHavilland, too, and Leslie Howard in comedy. This movie is a treasure, not to be missed.

It's Love I'm After concerns a famous acting couple (Leslie Howard and Bette Davis) whose fighting often outweighs their love for each other. When a young girl (Olivia De Havilland) develops an intense crush on Howard, her fiancée takes it upon himself to make a deal with him to be mean to her. Howard does it to improve his moral standing but takes a few relapses as everything he does excites Havilland even more. This is a truly funny comedy with an excellent cast.

Olivia De Havilland appears here in an early role. Her enthusiasm and innocence make her seem younger than she is and very high-strung. However, her performance is perfect for the part.

It seems that in Hollywood there were two legitimate British actors: Howard and Charles Laughton. Laughton's weight forced him into fatherly roles and Howard's good looks pushed him toward romantic leads. Howard's presence in this film reflects his talents as an actor and this stereotype but the two are incorporated brilliantly. He shines the brightest.

It's Love I'm After (Archie Mayo, 1937) is just a delight, an incredibly well-written screwball comedy that keeps the expertly-crafted witticisms flying thick and fast. Given the wrong material or the wrong direction, Leslie Howard could appear unbearably smug, but here he gets the role of a lifetime - and makes the most of it. He's a conceited ham, with two eyes for the ladies, who spends most of his time off-stage (and some of it on) warring with thespian girlfriend Bette Davis. Resolving one day to turn over not just a new leaf, but a whole book of them, he's forced to play the last word in unthinking bounders to disillusion the fiancée (Olivia de Havilland) of an old friend's son. It's a great set up: a reformed character having to appear even more reprehensible than before in order to do the decent thing, and it's developed in consistently surprising, imaginative ways.

And then there's the cast. Howard is flawless as the conceited, confused, compromised, increasingly desperate cad - who has more than a little of John Barrymore about him - with Davis giving her best comedic performance as his long-suffering lover, who packs an explosive temper. De Havilland is perfectly cast, both cloying and appealing as the starstruck girl who'll excuse anything her rambunctious idol does, while Eric Blore excels as Howard's valet and co-conspirator. Blore, one of the great supporting comics, is great in everything, but I've never seen him as funny as here. Displaying his customary lack of vanity and willingness to do anything for a laugh, he spends most of one scene making ridiculous bird noises and another displacing his silly toupee. Blore also gets the best line of the film, responding to Bonnie Granville's cry of "I know something you don't know" with one of the funniest, most petulant one-liners I've ever heard.

Drawing on Shakespeare to gets both its pathos and its laughs, in the vein of To Be or Not to Be and Withnail & I, It's Love I'm After is streets ahead of most other golden era comedies: intelligent, romantic and uproariously funny, eliciting the particular buzz that comes with watching something that's clearly very special.

The plot of "It's Love I'm After", Archie Mayo's 1937 film, is a fairly simple one. A famed Shakespearean actor, Basil Underwood (Howard) is set to marry his longtime co-star Joyce (Davis) after a tumultuous courtship. The night he proposes to Joyce (again – this has occurred several times before) a stranger named Marcia (de Havilland) visits his dressing room, professing her love for him, telling him that she has seen all of his work, etc. He finds this intriguing and charming, but on his way to elope with Joyce, Marcia's fiancée Henry (Knowles) comes to visit Basil, asking for his help in curing Marcia's obsession. The two concoct a plan wherein Basil will go to Marcia's house, where her family is throwing a weekend party for guests, and act like a complete ass so that her affection for him will wane, and she will run back into Henry's arms. Basil embarks on his plans with his trusty valet Digges (Blore) with Joyce following close behind to get to the bottom of why she has been ditched – again.

The entire reason why I wanted to watch this film is because I had never seen it, and it features two of my favorite actresses of all time. And while de Havilland and Davis were characteristically wonderful (particularly de Havilland, who was positively luminous in this fairly early role), it was two of the male leads, Howard and Blore, who were the most delightful and humorous. Howard, probably best known as the weak Ashley from "Gone with the Wind", is absolutely hilarious in his role as a self-important, over-dramatic, yet earnest actor. I was often reminded of Rex Harrison, particularly of his performance in the sublime film "Unfaithfully Yours". The combination of intelligence, rapier wit and at times completely moronic behavior was a huge winner in this film. This is the first film I've seen Eric Blore act in, but his role of Digges was another hilarious inspiration. His seemingly stuffy (veddy British) demeanor was in complete conflict with the downright ridiculous situations he willingly participated in. The two were wonderful together, and it looked like they were having a great time doing this film.

Director Archie Mayo has directed films as widely diverse as "The Petrified Forest" (Humphrey Bogart) and "A Night in Casablanca" (The Marx Bros.), but it is clear that he has a true gift for comedic direction. The pacing of "It's Love I'm After" was very quick and the dialogue was whip-smart. I enjoyed this film a lot more than I ever expected to, and since it's one that seems to go under the radar often, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys classic comedy. "It's Love I'm After" gets a very emphatic 8/10 from me.

--Shelly