Rafter Romance

Ginger Rogers arrived at RKO Studios in April 1933 after they had signed her to a three-picture deal. Her first film there was "Professional Sweetheart". The director was William Seiter and her leading man was Norman Foster. Ginger said Seiter had a tremendous sense of humor and was a joy to work with. She had flirted with Foster in her first film at Paramouht.

After "Don't Bet on Love" and "A Shriek in the Night", Ginger's contract was picked up for another year, she was presented with the script for "Rafter Romance", to be directed by her old friend Bill Seiter and starring Norman Foster. She said it was like "old-home week again". This "B" picture was filmed just months before the big break of her career. In September, she would start filming "Flying Down to Rio", in which she would dance with Fred Astaire, effectively changing the arc of her career and her life.

"Rafter Romance" is a typical big-city story about young adults trying to make ends meet during the difficult economy. Mary (Ginger Rogers) and Jack (Norman Foster) are tenants in the same apartment building. When they can't pay their rents, the landlord, Mr. Eckbaum (George Sidney) ingeniously realizes they could share the same apartment since one works day hours and the other works the night shift.

It's a somewhat racy premise for its time, but the film was made in the pre-Code era--that brief but glorious period when studios were allowed freer expression. Accordingly, the film includes some suggestions of nudity and impropriety that were typical of pre-Code films.

The film lasts a mere 73 minutes and the story is not demanding, but the actors acquit themselves well. No doubt they enjoyed the filming, having a natural chemistry. The Eckbaum family provides a warm, but humorous, backdrop for the action.

In one scene, the Eckbaum son-who always seems to be hanging around--is drawing swastikas in chalk on the wall near the lobby phone. In 1933, the Nazis would have figured prominently in world news. Their eye-catching symbol was, no doubt, fascinating to youngsters, so it makes sense that he might scribble it as graffiti. Before long, the menace of Nazism would become more apparent.

This has the same leading cast as "Professional Sweetheart", even the same director. It was lost for years because it was in legal rights limbo when Turner Classic Movies got the rights to it and five other films, but I digress.

The setup is simple but purely precode. A man (Norman Foster) and a woman (Ginger Rogers) -Jack and Mary - are forced by their landlord to move into the same attic together, with Mary having the premises at night and Jack having them during the day. Each has to be out of the attic 15 minutes before the other arrives "home" so that they never meet. The reason for this was that they were both behind on their rent with no real chance of catching up. Thus the landlord can rent their old rooms out to people who can pay the rent plus he gets rent for what has now been an unused part of the house - the attic - and Jack and Mary are not homeless. A win win.

Now the two have never met, but tensions rise immediately when Mary overhears Jack calling her a "skinny old maid". They play pranks on each other that escalate to the point we are in Looney Tunes territory. Meanwhile Jack and Mary have actually met on the street, and have begun to fall in love. What will happen when they each find out who the other is? Watch and find out.

As in many precode films, nothing really indecent goes on, yet this film would not have been allowed to be produced just a year later. The most extreme thing you see is Ginger Rogers in various stages of undress, and Jack seems to be in some kind of "boy toy" situation with Laura Hope Crews' character, Elise. He is an artist working as a night watchman and she is a rich woman who seems to want to "keep" him, although he is not willing to let it go that far.

This is Peter Benchley's biggest role so far in a film. Here he plays Mary's lecherous boss who is making the moves on Mary and at least one other girl in his employ. Not exactly the role I am accustomed to seeing Benchley in, and yet he still plays it with his signature dry wit.

The most shocking thing to audiences today, probably? The landlords, the Eckbaums, are Jewish, and they have a son that they tell to stand in the hall and wait for one of the tenants to get home, there is a message for this person. Well like so many teens he gets bored and starts doodling on the wall. What does he doodle? Swastikas! How odd.

There's a feeling of deja vu to the plot of RAFTER ROMANCE about two people who aren't aware of each other's identity until they fall in love, but in 1933 it must have seemed quite an original idea.

At any rate, it gives GINGER ROGERS and NORMAN FOSTER a nice chance to show what they could do with light comedy and tender romance. They play two roommates who work different shifts but who eventually meet and fall in love. (Shades of YOU'VE GOT MAIL and other such stories). And oddly enough, ROBERT BENCHLEY would be making a play for Ginger as a lecherous wolf, just as he would some ten years later in THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR when he suggested she slip into something more comfortable.

After a series of pranks and misunderstandings, Foster and Rogers find each other at the company picnic and promptly fall in love.

Watch for LAURA HOPE CREWS (Aunt Pittypat of GWTW) as a woman who wants to "keep" Norman Foster--and GUINN WILLIAMS as a brawny taxicab driver.

Summing up: Good fun with an early look at Ginger.

RAFTER ROMANCE is a delightful little comedy rescued from the legalities that kept it out of circulation for over 40 years by Turner Classic Movies (thanks folks!) starring a pre-stardom Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster. Looks to me like a ton of people may saw this little gem anyway because it has a number of bits that seem to have influenced later pictures such as a running gag about the climb up stairs in a New York apartment (used most famously in BAREFOOT IN THE PARK) and it's main theme - a couple are in love but hate their unseen roommates, completely unaware that it's each other, which was used in reverse (coworkers hate each other but fall in love with their unseen pen pals who happen to be that hated foe) in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER and it's remake YOU'VE GOT MAIL.

This movie has many charming moments and proved Ginger with one of her first showcases for her sparkling comedy talent although the lovely star is not always photographed flatteringly. Norman Foster has for decades been best known to movie buffs as Claudette Colbert's first husband rather than for his actual film work, thanks to TCM we can now see his fairly prolific career as a leading man in the pre-code era, often cast as a weak heel or (as here) a middle-class answer to Robert Montgomery. Both stars give terrific performances and there's lovely "falling in love" moments in a canoe at the company picnic that are quite romantic. (I agree with another reviewer that the trash laden picnic tables left by Ginger' coworkers is a rather startling glance at America in it's pre anti-litterbug days.)

In the supporting cast, Laura Hope Crews stands out as artist Foster's aging benefactress who wants a more intimate relationship with her protégé. Legendary humorist Robert Benchley is also around as Ginger's boss at the "ice box" company with no so secret designs on his Ginger himself.

As another viewer comments this is one of the first films with it's characters set in the world of telemarketing and it rings true some 70 years later with it's long-winded phone sales pitches, apparently hostile and blue responses (unheard on film but clearly received judging by the employees' faces) by the receiptents of these unsolicited calls, and one of the funniest bits in the film, albeit unintentional, has Benchley urging his employees to "put a smile in your voice", a phrase most definitely still in use today when training employees for work in this and similar phone-oriented fields.

Had no idea that I was going to enjoy this old time 1933 comedy film starring Ginger Rodgers, (Mary Carroll) who lives in a rooming house and has fallen behind in her rent for about three months. Mary's landlord tells her she must moved out of her apartment and move upstairs in the attic until she finds a job. However, the landlord does not tell her she has to also share the attic apartment with a man named Jack Bacon, (Norman Foster) who is an artist-night watchman who has also fallen behind in his rent. Mary works during the day time and Jack shares the apartment in the day time and leaves at 8PM in the evening when Mary comes home. The two of them do not know each other and do not like each others habits or ways of living. During the day they meet and have no idea they are both sharing the same apartment. This is a very delightful comedy and worth watching. Enjoy!.