A Night at the Ritz

Erik Rhodes and Allen Jenkins carry this one from 1935, in Rhodes' fourth credited role. Rhodes had just had a large role with Astaire and Rogers in "Gay Divorcée" the year before, and was an expert at euro accents. Leopold is happy to let people think he cooked the meal eaten by Regan (William Gargan), and it even gets him a job offer. Early-ish role for Allen Jenkins, mister nasal voice and slightly dim-guy mug from SO many films of the 1930s and 1940s. Directed by William McGann, who had also directed a TON of stuff in the 1930s and 1940s. Shown on Turner Classics occasionally, but really not very captivating. much ado about nothing. kind of meanders along, but never really gets us interested. They do end up at the Ritz, (from the title...) but we have already fallen asleep. It's only a shortie from Warner Brothers. Skip it. Script needed some pepping up or something.

Wisecracking William Gargan wangles an invite to a pretty girl's home for dinner. He hits on the brilliant scheme of making her brother a culinary star.

(Such stardom was probably a far less common event in the 1930s than it is now. In Europe, not to mention in the little old USA.) We can pretty much guess what problems will ensure. The brother, played very amusingly by Erik Rhodes, maybe is not such a great cook ....

Still, it has a great supporting cast. The script is definitely not polished as it would be for a major movie. But it's clever and holds our attention.

Things end happily but, for some of the characters, disappointingly.

Things end happily but, for some of the characters, disappointingly.

William Gargan plays Duke Regan, a schemer who is generally obnoxious and looking for his next scheme. He's also a bit of a pig when it comes to women, yet, oddly, Marcia Jaynos (Patricia Ellis) falls for his lines....and it's really hard to see why. Regardless, having such a jerk as the main character in "A Night at the Ritz" certainly makes it a tough sell.

When the story begins, you see Duke making some passes at Marcia...and he won't take no for an answer. He invites himself to her house for dinner and apparently his boorish ways have worn her down and she agrees to bring him home for a home cooked dinner. It turns out to be amazing food and Duke incorrectly assumes Marcia's brother cooked it, though Leopold has zero talent when it comes to cooking. Without even telling anyone his newest scheme, he rushes from their apartment and goes to the Ritz to sell them on Leopold as their new head chef. What's to come of all this? Watch it...or don't.

To say that Duke is hard to like is putting it very mildly. He comes off as a know-it-all, much like many of Lee Tracy's characters...but untalented. He talks a mile a minute and is about as honest as a $4 bill. So why would you want to watch him for an hour during this B-movie from Warner Brothers? I know I didn't enjoy the 62 minutes....which felt much, much longer. It's funny, as the film isn't terrible but Duke is such a jerk I had a hard time caring about the other characters.

By the way, why does Leopold have a HEAVY foreign accent while Marcia, his sister, sounds 100% American? And, why didn't someone at Warner Brothers seem to notice this??

To me one of the funniest supporting actors of the 30s was Erik Rhodes.Who will ever forget his Italian Count in Top Hat.In this Warners B feature he gets as near as he would ever do to star billing.He plays a would be chef who relies more on his foreign name rather than ability to get a top job at the Ritz.In reality his mum is the great chef.The main lead is William Gargan.The best way i can describe him is a poor mans James Cagney.Mind you even Cagney would have had to strain to extract laughs out of this rather threadbare plot.Whilst i always enjoy seeing Allan Jenkins even he has to overact wildly to extract any laughs from a script which seems to have been polished off in a couple of hours.