Rafter Romance

Ginger Rogers was a first rate actress, and one of the funniest when she wanted to be. This film has her renting an apartment and having trouble with her rent. Her boss (Robert Benchley) is a sexist pig who demands a date. Several times.

Money forces her landlord to make her share her attic apartment with a painter (Norman Foster) – he gets days, she gets nights – and the two build certain assumptions about each other and dislike each other, sight unseen.

Sight seen, though they don't know they're sharing an apartment, they fall in love.

Laura Hope Crews is funny as the drunken woman of means who is constantly trying to seduce Foster, and George Sidney is delightful as the landlord.

Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams puts in an appearance as the protective cabbie.

All in all, a delightful film. Good plot, delightful acting, and – pre Hayes code – we get a glimpse of Miss Roger's legs. I'm sorry, but for all her splendid talent, we must not forget the God-given asset which carried her through so many later films with Freddy Astaire.

Fun find! Two hip young people trying to make a go in NYC in 1933. After not paying their rents for 3 months the landlord moves them into the same attic apartment as their schedules are opposite. It's a great peek at urban life in 1933 with drunken work picnics, a lecherous boss, a high society cougar, a telemarketing office and two witty and sassily dressed 20 somethings trying to make it in the big apple. And it's shot in and around the city. As other reviewers have mentioned - the landlord is stereotypical Jew and there's a stereotypical Italian selling flowers on the street. Not so nice. But this is pretty typical in Hollywood, even now isn't it? The landlord is actually a very likable fellow. He's not one dimensional and you laugh at the crazy antics and his great acting - NOT because of anything "Jewish". And as mentioned - there's another really interesting moment when the landlord's teenage son is writing swastikas on the chalkboard near the phone. He gets a smack on the head for it and he exclaims "But it's good luck!" It is not "making a joke of Nazism" but is in fact pointing out the interesting dilemma for that time. Previous to the Nazis adopting the symbol it DID denote good luck and it was (and still is) a positive icon for many races and religions. This movie foreshadows the evilness the symbol would become, especially to Jewish families. And for an American film to be blatantly anti-Nazi so early means smart writer/director. I'm really glad I got to see this film after its 50 years of purgatory.

The Depression was hard times folks and people made due the best they could economically. Goes for landlords and tenants in Rafter Romance.

Landlord George Sidney decides to help Ginger Rogers out and double his income besides. He's got a tenant in Norman Foster who works as a night watchman where he also gets to do his painting at his real vocation as artist. Rogers is having a bad time financially so Sidney gets the bright idea to rent her the attic apartment that Foster lives in and sleeps days. She'll take it for twelve hours also.

Of course this being the thirties proprieties must be observed and Sidney and his whole family will make sure they're observed. No contact of any kind between the two tenants.

But this is Hollywood and I think you can figure out the rest.

Besides those mentioned look for good performances by Robert Benchley as Ginger's wolfish boss at what would now be called a tele-marketing agency. And also from Laura Hope Crews who plays a drunken society woman who would very much like to keep artist Foster as a private boy toy.

Times have certainly changed. Quite frankly as long as I don't wreck the place, do no illegal activity, and pay my rent on time, my landlord could not care less who I might have as company at a given moment. I'm not sure today's audience would really get what was happening here in Rafter Romance.

The laughs though are still in place and ready to be enjoyed.

RAFTER ROMANCE is a delightful little comedy rescued from the legalities that kept it out of circulation for over 40 years by Turner Classic Movies (thanks folks!) starring a pre-stardom Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster. Looks to me like a ton of people may saw this little gem anyway because it has a number of bits that seem to have influenced later pictures such as a running gag about the climb up stairs in a New York apartment (used most famously in BAREFOOT IN THE PARK) and it's main theme - a couple are in love but hate their unseen roommates, completely unaware that it's each other, which was used in reverse (coworkers hate each other but fall in love with their unseen pen pals who happen to be that hated foe) in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER and it's remake YOU'VE GOT MAIL.

This movie has many charming moments and proved Ginger with one of her first showcases for her sparkling comedy talent although the lovely star is not always photographed flatteringly. Norman Foster has for decades been best known to movie buffs as Claudette Colbert's first husband rather than for his actual film work, thanks to TCM we can now see his fairly prolific career as a leading man in the pre-code era, often cast as a weak heel or (as here) a middle-class answer to Robert Montgomery. Both stars give terrific performances and there's lovely "falling in love" moments in a canoe at the company picnic that are quite romantic. (I agree with another reviewer that the trash laden picnic tables left by Ginger' coworkers is a rather startling glance at America in it's pre anti-litterbug days.)

In the supporting cast, Laura Hope Crews stands out as artist Foster's aging benefactress who wants a more intimate relationship with her protégé. Legendary humorist Robert Benchley is also around as Ginger's boss at the "ice box" company with no so secret designs on his Ginger himself.

As another viewer comments this is one of the first films with it's characters set in the world of telemarketing and it rings true some 70 years later with it's long-winded phone sales pitches, apparently hostile and blue responses (unheard on film but clearly received judging by the employees' faces) by the receiptents of these unsolicited calls, and one of the funniest bits in the film, albeit unintentional, has Benchley urging his employees to "put a smile in your voice", a phrase most definitely still in use today when training employees for work in this and similar phone-oriented fields.

There's a feeling of deja vu to the plot of RAFTER ROMANCE about two people who aren't aware of each other's identity until they fall in love, but in 1933 it must have seemed quite an original idea.

At any rate, it gives GINGER ROGERS and NORMAN FOSTER a nice chance to show what they could do with light comedy and tender romance. They play two roommates who work different shifts but who eventually meet and fall in love. (Shades of YOU'VE GOT MAIL and other such stories). And oddly enough, ROBERT BENCHLEY would be making a play for Ginger as a lecherous wolf, just as he would some ten years later in THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR when he suggested she slip into something more comfortable.

After a series of pranks and misunderstandings, Foster and Rogers find each other at the company picnic and promptly fall in love.

Watch for LAURA HOPE CREWS (Aunt Pittypat of GWTW) as a woman who wants to "keep" Norman Foster--and GUINN WILLIAMS as a brawny taxicab driver.

Summing up: Good fun with an early look at Ginger.