Brides Are Like That

Here's a nifty little vintage "rom-com" from Warner Brothers' B-unit. Starring the affable wiseacre Ross Alexander and lovely Anita Louise, Brides Are Like That provides a few chuckles and a more than pleasant experience.

Like so many 1930's romances, it's based on a play, and this one is from about a dozen years earlier entitled, "Applesauce," which refers to an extended metaphor used throughout. The fairly standard plot involves a love triangle between the two leads and stodgy Dick Purcell, who plays an M.D. with designs on Louise. Alexander portrays a charming loafer who'd rather golf than work, and the girl must choose between the two, with the Lockharts as her parents pushing her into marriage with Purcell.

In typical Warner Brothers style, the exceedingly clever dialog moves at a crisp, almost rapid-fire, pace which enlivens what could easily have become a set-bound and ponderous experience for the audience. The characters are all certainly quirky -- almost foreshadowing the later You Can't Take It With You.

I find Ross Alexander to be a very like-able screen presence always, and here he really demonstrates a lot of potential as a comic leading man, in the way of contemporaries like George Burns or Bob Hope. He's looks great, without being too conventionally handsome, and really seems like a guy that both men and women would respond to. And Anita Louise obviously is stunningly beautiful, without any bad angle at which to be photographed.

All told, Brides Are Like That does its source material proud, and provides slightly over an hour's worth of frivolity and amusement.

Hazel (Anita Louise) has two men who want to marry her. Randolph is a doctor...and very reliable...but also about as much fun and interesting as a ball of lint. In contrast, Bill is fun and unpredictable...but also incredibly lazy and undisciplined. For some odd reason, Hazel thinks she has to choose between them...and she chooses Bill. As for Bill, he's about as mature as an 8 year-old...and is constantly talking. I personally wanted to punch Bill in the beezer!

So is this film any good? Not really. Bill is simply annoying and you cannot understand why Hazel would want him. And, by the end of the film, you're left thinking this as well! Overall, a weird and unsatisfying film....one that seemed incomplete and one in which Bill learned absolutely nothing...except how to use people and annoy them.

Light weight comedy by Warner Brothes (WB) featuring second tier Stars ROSS Alexander and ANITA LOUISE. Those two (2) form the romantic lead couple. They are supported by 'Character Actors' whose shtick in these films is standard for the time. The sole interesting note is the film featured Husband and Wife, GENE & KATHLEEN LOCKHART, yes JUNE's Parents.

Independent Spirit Bill McAllister (ROSS) loves Hazel Robinson (LOUISE) vying for her affection with Dr. Randolf Jenkins (DICK PURCELL). Both his Uncle and her Parents object. Why, because he has no hook to hang his hat on and no prospects of getting one. That does not stop Hazel though and the triumph of their inevitable marriage is a fantasy that only could occur in the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood. Want the details, watch the film. It is only 67" long.

ROSS Alexander a couple years earlier was being brought up through the WB star system. By 1936 and the BRIDES ARE LIKE THAT he had been regulated to the second tier. ROSS's style was reminiscent of WILLIAM HAINES, late of MGM. The irresponsible 'Gay Blade' who by 'pluck & luck' overcomes all obstacles and triumphs by the end of the last reel. MR. HAINES was forced out of the business because of his homosexuality, but became a successful interior decorator. MR. ROSS could not handle the failing of his career and personal life. On January 02, 1937 decided the rest of the year and his life were not worth viewing. Lead poisoning too his temple solved his conflict.

Badly dated romantic comedy, based on play, about a shiftless, fast-talking young man who can;t seem to hold a job. Nor does he really want to. He lives off a well-do-do uncle. Ross Alexander, a sort of precursor to Bob Hope, plays the golf-loving lad. Most of the movie is taken up with a love triangle: Alexander, Anita Louise as the fetching daughter of a banker played by Gene Lockhart and a young doctor played by Dick Purcell. The movie is very stage-bound, and nothing much really happens. The best that can be said of it is that Alexander delivers his lines like a machine gunner on speed, and Lockhart and the fellow playing Alexander's uncle make good foils. Louise is amazingly pretty under all that '30s makeup and hairdo. The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying. I hate to think the play ended the same way.

I have a number of problems with this picture. There is a certain weary sameness in the way everyone speaks their lines; it's not just the high-speed Warner-B style of declamation. Almost every line is spoken with anger or dislike. Even Gene and Kathleen Lockhart are annoyingly strident. Only Joseph Cawthorn, doing his usual double talk is at all amusing.

The real obstacle is Ross Alexander in the lead, who only seems to have one register: simultaneously bluff and arrogant, always on in big and small scenes.

That said, there is some good writing here, some amusing lines and some well-constructed speeches, but director William McGann doesn't seem to do much with them. The camera-work and editing are, as usual, topnotch. The net effect is passable, but in the hands of better players -- or perhaps simply a better director -- it could have been so much more.