Pillow to Post

This wartime romcom is about Jean Howard (Ida Lupino), the daughter of an oilfield supplies company owner. Though she is feminine and delicate, she volunteers to handle field sales and sets off to deal with roughnecks out west. This fish out of water story is secondary to the humor that evolves from a falsehood she employs.

She needs a room to operate out of, but like almost every other commodity, rooms are scarce and (practically) rationed. Out of necessity, she pretends to be the wife of an army lieutenant to get accommodations in an auto court. Then she sets off to find a lieutenant to play along with her charade. She finds Don Mallory (William Prince), who becomes trapped in her lie.

Lupino and Prince have excellent chemistry. This is a cute film that is well written. Though its stage play roots are evident, the screenplay is very entertaining. It also does a good job of demonstrating wartime exigencies and the resulting culture.

Willie Best plays the role of Lucille, the all-purpose fixit-man and gopher for the auto court. He is mystified by some of the goings-on that surround the Mallory household. Though his part may be seen as stereotypical, he rises above it and delivers many of the best lines of comedy.

Watch for Sydney Greenstreet as a commanding officer and Louis Armstrong who performs with his band.

This film hasn't been put on VHS or DVD. I saw it on the Turner Classic Movie channel in early July, 2007. What starts out to be a rather predictable wartime "B" light comedy, emerges shortly as a full-blown screwball comedy of the most delightful sort. Ida Lupino, of all people,shows that she can do comedy as well as Carol Lombard. After her years at Columbia, Warner Brothers finally discovered her broad acting talent. (Would that Columbia and MGM had discovered the comedic abilities of Lucille Ball decades earlier.) This low-budget gem, based on a play, reveals quite a bit about wartime America's economy and socio-economic structure. But mostly it's about a romantic entanglement and mistaken identity, two much-used devices that need first rate acting to pull off. Here, it happens. Even Sidney Greenstreet manages his atypical role in an impressive way. I don't know why the producers decided to insert a meaningless nightclub scene featuring two minutes of Louis Armstrong "and his orchestra," but perhaps this was just a way to attract more viewers. By the way, this is one of Willy Best's best films. He was finally given something to do in a movie that didn't involve Charlie Chan. Paul Harvey and William Prince also handled their roles admirably. In short, this is a long- forgotten winner.

Ida Lupino stars as a saleslady working for her father's company. As it was during WWII, women were assuming many jobs held by men and Ida does this to help out with the war effort. However, she turns out to be pretty bad at sales and by the time she gets to one remote location, she's desperate. But things only get worse, as there is a military base nearby and so there are no spare hotel rooms. On a lark, she checks into a motel designated for spouses of servicemen. However, she's single and lies to get the room--and unless she wants to get tossed out, she'll have to find some guy to pose as her husband. The unsuspecting shmoe is a young lieutenant (William Prince)--whose nice gesture completely blows up in his face. And now, they are stuck together--otherwise the Lieutenant will be in serious trouble with his Colonel. Can all this be straightened out and Lupino and Prince avoid serious consequences?

This is a nice screwy comedy that was pretty timely--as there was a severe housing shorting during the war. In many ways, the theme is reminiscent of the wonderful comedy "The More the Merrier"--though this latter film is much more of a classic. "Pillow to Post", on the other hand, is rather slight...enjoyable but slight.

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Jean Howard (Ida Lupino) is a single 30 year old in L. A living off of her oil tycoon father's money. With all the men away at war, she convinces him to be his new oil well supply salesman despite never working a day in her life. It's not going well but she refuses to come home. With the wartime shortage, she stumbled upon housing near an army base but they only take in army families. Lt. Don Mallory gives her a lift and she recruits him to be her fake husband. He's forced into the situation when his commanding officer Colonel Michael Otley gets involved. In addition, potential client Earl Clark is interested. Louis Armstrong and Dorothy Dandridge do some music. Willie Best is the local driver Lucille.

This is a fun rom-com. I like Ida's sassy fake-crying try-hard character. William Prince is fine as the mild-mannered do-gooder. It would work better if he's dumber. He would be easier to manipulate by Jean but he does have good banter with her. I'm still not sure that I buy him going along with her scam but a good rom-com does require some disbelief. This is pretty good. I like these characters. Their sitcom silliness is fun. I actually like this love triangle where all the sides are nice interesting characters. It's not winning any awards but it's still fun.

Ida Lupino was mostly known for drama but she does well in comedy. Its too bad the script wasn't as good as she was. It has some laughs and cute moments but it misses the mark as a screwball comedy or a farce. It is still enjoyable and worth seeing.

It is fun seeing Greenstreet in a non villainous role.