El gigoló

Although the acting is very good in "Ladies' Man", the film has one huge strike against it....you don't care very much for the main character. In some stories, this doesn't matter but for a romance, that's a significant problem!

Jamie (William Powell) is a gigolo who is romancing BOTH a woman (Carole Lombard) AND her mother at the same time! Now that really takes nerve! But what takes even more nerve is his beginning to date a third person (Kay Francis) at the same time! The daughter (Lombard) is pretty unstable and you can't help but think bad things will come of all this.

As I already said, the acting is very good and the story isn't bad. But you can't help but not care very much about Jamie or his exploits, as this guy uses women and has no interest in working and having a real job. Enjoying the high life off of women is his only goal in life....though meeting Norma (Francis) shakes his resolve. Watchable and interesting but no more.

William Powell is a "Ladies' Man" in this 1931 drama, also starring Kay Francis and Carole Lombard.

Powell plays a gigolo who lives off of older women. The daughter of one of them (Lombard) is madly in love with him. When he meets Kay Francis, he falls in love and wants to leave his desolate way of life. Is it too late?

For me, the early talkies have the same problem - rhythm. Directors and actors just weren't used to the flow of dialogue; sometimes there are pauses between lines, and the film comes off as stilted.

Powell was wonderful, as he always was, playing a man who isn't really happy with his lifestyle but used to it. Kay Francis was very glamorous as usual, and her acting is fine until the very end - today her final moments would be considered over the top. And gorgeous Carole Lombard for me was completely over the top. However, that was the style then. It took time to make the adjustment from talkies.

This is certainly not your typical film.

As a little bit of trivia, those familiar with Get Smart and remember Don Adams - he modeled his character's speaking voice after William Powell's.

Every now and then a truly unusual film from the early thirties resurfaces which proves to be a revelation. "The Ladies Man" definitely fits that description. Mature, sophisticated, intelligent and uncompromising, to watch "The Ladies Man" is a breath of fresh air for anyone who is used to finding most of the movies produced in the early talky era crude, formulaic claptrap with "a happy ending".

William Powell is one of my favorite actors, and in this silkenly produced 1931 Paramount bauble he gives a startling world-weary, downbeat, and even tragic performance. He plays an unrepentant gigolo who seems all too aware his dissipated lifestyle dooms him somehow, he just doesn't know when the other shoe is going to drop. Kay Francis was never more appealing and glamorous, and Carole Lombard gives perhaps the first great performance of her career, playing a drunken playgirl driven nearly crazy by her mixed feelings towards Powell's strangely sympathetic cad. To say more would be to spoil a well-directed, well-paced film.

Definitely recommended for anyone with adult tastes and looking for something that's not the same-old same-old.

This is precode, which I find interesting at the movies moved from silent to talkie/precode and then talkies with ratings/warnings.

I liked this movie, and would watch it once.

Powell always holds his own, and he didn't want to do this movie. Still, it is solid, and when you have these three actors, they will deliver compelling performances. It also approaches tough topics; it is almost a classy soap opera. This film features some pretty sordid choices as to what someone has decided to do with their lives.

The downside is that the love interests some times fall in love within a day, which makes it not so plausible. It weakens the viewer's investment in the characters. It's just not as believable.

I still enjoyed it and Powell commits; Lombard plays a very believable drunk at times; Kay Francis facial expressions and commitment are in depth. I enjoyed seeing these wonderful actors.

William Powell is a ladies' man. He moves through New York upper crust, a regular at the parties of the 400, a resident at a hotel. Where does his money come from? The ladies, whom he charms. They give him the jewelry their husbands buy them, and he sells them to pawnbroker Clarence Williams. One woman who gives him her jewelry is Olive Tell. Another, who want to marry him, is her daughter, Carole Lombard. Then he meets Kay Francis.

Powell gives a performance that is a model of diffidence verging in contempt, not just for the women, for himself. Miss Lombard gives one of her society deb performances, with a drunk scene of the type that she would come to play for comedy. It's not a terribly interesting movie for me, because there's no one to really feel sorry for. Powell's performance is spot on, of course, but he recognizes his own unworthiness, and Miss Francis falls too easily for his charms, setting up an ending that comes as little surprise. There's little of the chemistry in this Paramount movie that would make their work together at Warner Brothers so romantic. Perhaps Herman Mankiewicz lacked the powers to adapt the Rupert Hughes novel it is based on, or perhaps Hughes' novel was too mechanical. Perhaps director Lothar Mendes was simply one of those directors whose strengths lay in the mechanics of film construction. Or perhaps it was all three of them.