Private Number

This movie has its charms, but it cannot be a "Pre-Code gem," since it came out two years after the Code clampdown kicked in.

It's a little sappy, actually -- it'd have been much better if it HAD been made during the Pre-Code era.

But I do agree that Loretta Young's delightful in it.

Loretta Young stars with Robert Taylor in "Private Number" from 1936, also featuring Basil Rathbone, Patsy Kelly, Marjorie Gateson, Paul Harvey, Monroe Owsley, and Jane Darwell.

Young plays Ellen, a new employee at the fabulous Winfield mansion, working as a personal maid to Mrs. Winfield (Gateson). She immediately catches the eye of the cruel, lecherous butler Wroxton (Rathbone) who tells her that things will go well for her if she cooperates and is accommodating.

One night, there's a big party going on when who should sweep in but the young man of the house, Richard (Taylor). Hmm...Loretta Young...Robert Taylor. I wonder what happens.

Ellen's best friend on the staff is Gracie (Patsy Kelly). The two of them go out one evening, but Ellen loses all of her money. A man (Owsley) offers her a ride home. He takes her instead to an illegal gambling parlor which is raided. Ellen, who never entered the gambling part, hides behind a door and is caught and arrested. She has to call Wroxton to bail her out. He files that away for future use.

Ellen and Richard find their mutual attraction too strong and start to see one another on the sly. He proposes marriage before he goes away to finish college. She feels him marrying beneath his station is a big mistake for him, and his family will not approve.

Taylor, an MGM actor, must have been on loan to 20th Century Fox. At that point, the studio was still in its infancy - Tyrone Power wouldn't come along until 1936, Richard Greene until 1938, and John Payne even later. I always felt they put too much makeup on Taylor, and he didn't need it. He and Young make a beautiful and sympathetic couple.

Young was simply gorgeous, about 22 years old then. Patsy Kelly to me always yelled her lines. Rathbone was terrific, absolutely hateful, as Wroxton.

Enjoyable.

Ellen (Loretta Young) arrives at a mansion seeking work as a domestic. Although she has no previous experience and normally wouldn't have been hired, the cruel head butler (Basil Rathbone) thinks she's a hot tomato and hires her--presumably so he can one day have his way with her. However, the unexpected happens...the son of the family she now works for soon falls for her. Richard (Robert Taylor) is very persistent and eventually they begin seeing each other on the sly. It becomes serious...so serious that he wants to marry her. But if she does, will the family accept her? And what about the cruel head butler? He's not the sort to just give up...especially when he has something he can blackmail her with should he choose to do so.

This is a very interesting film when you realize how tall Basil Rathbone was in real life. He wasn't a small guy...but here the director must be manipulating perspective to make him look much taller and more menacing. So, while he's only less than two inches taller than Robert Taylor, he towers over him...and everyone else. This was actually a smart move and really made him seem all the more awful!

So is this any good? Well, considering the actors, it couldn't help but be very good. Young and Taylor are very good but Rathbone steals the show with his shear awfulness...he really was a terrific villain. Also, in a small role, Monroe Owsley was AMAZING as a pusilanimous jerk...and his courtroom scene is one of the best I've seen in some time. Too bad Owsley died the following year. Well worth seeing and satisfying all around.

"Private Number" is a most enjoyable film that may be largely unknown among most buffs of older films today. But it has a very pleasing cast , good dialog, beautiful sets and costuming, a dastardly Basil Rathbone, the beautiful voice of a young Robert Taylor, and the gloriously glistening eyes of Miss Loretta Young. How did they do that with her eyes? She was such a fine and watchable actress, her performance here nuanced and anticipatory in her give and take with the troupe, even though the production was likely on a conveyor-belt schedule. It isn't one of the all-time great films, but it is a very good and worthwhile one. The film's subject matter may have even made a lot of those in the 1936 movie audiences a bit uncomfortable.

I caught this film for the very first time,as I can remember,on Fox Movie Channel.The lead actor was listed as Tyronne Power instead of Robert Taylor.I don't know whether the fault lies with TV Guide or the cable channel.Maybe both.

I enjoyed watching a young Loretta Young,one of my favorites.The storyline deals with a maid who falls in love,marries and has a baby for her employers son.Basil Rathbone,another one of my favs,plays the wicked butler who cooks up a devilish plot to have her arrested and and discredited in the eyes of her employers and fired.

This old black and white charm took me way back to my childhood days watching Ms Young's television show with similar stories.Released way back in the 1930's,it is a jewel of a picture.

Can you believe TV Guide even had it listed as a comedy?