Good-bye Love

Sidney Blackmer no sooner recovers his fortune than his ex-wife has him thrown in jail for non-payment of alimony. It's not that Mayo Methot is lacking companionship; she simply sees no reason to marry the guy and give up the pension. Before he goes into prison, Blackmer writes a check to his valet, Charlie Ruggles, for enough money to satisfy all current and future claims for his ex-wife. But when he discovers she intends to use the money to take her boyfriend on a vacation, he pays her just the monthly stipend and goes on the vacation himself. Adding a "Sir" to his name, he proceeds to become intimate with Verree Teasdale, who's engaged to Blackmer.

I suspect that someone or perhaps several someones on the production side of this movie was paying a lot of money in alimony. The result is a movie that mixes some serious characters and subplots with continual low-key comedy that Ruggles offers here. It works pretty well. With Phyllis Barry, Ray Walker, Luis Alberni and Hattie McDaniel.

"Goodby Love" is a cute little B-movie from Radio Pictures. It begins with a businessman, Chester Hamilton, having problems paying his alimony--and his ex-wife has him thrown into a VERY surreal jail. I call it surreal because the place is full of men owning spousal support and they have a grand old time! Soon, Hamilton's butler, Oswald (Charlie Ruggles) is tossed into the place as well since he's having trouble paying off his own ex-wife. Hamilton gives Oswald the money he needs but Oswald is tricky---and gives his ex only enough to get her off his back. With the rest, he goes on holiday--posing as a rich guy to hook a rich wife. Unfortunately, the woman he falls for is also posing as a rich lady. At first, she is ready to marry Oswald but when Hamilton is released from prison, she chases him instead. When Oswald and Hamilton find out about this, the movie gets rather strange....see it to see what I mean.

This film is an amiable little comedy. As usual, Ruggles is enjoyable in this nice, slight role. My only complaint about the movie is that since it is a B-movie, it clocks in at only a tad over an hour. Having it be a bit longer would have made for a better film and allowed the plot to unfold slower and more deliberately. Still, it's a nice little time-passer.

By the way, Hamilton's first wife is played by Mayo Methot--a woman who was, for a while, married to Humphrey Bogart. Together, she and her hubby were nicknamed 'the battling Bogarts' because their relationship was so tumultuous.

There are a lot of movies from the '30's that I don't like, but I could see how they would've been popular back then. Somehow, I think "Good-bye Love" (GBL) was a stinker even in 1933. The real purpose of the movie seems to be to malign women.

Wait.

Then maybe it was a hit in 1933.

Just about every woman in GBL was a gold digger and every man an innocent victim. Per GBL the men only married for love and were unsuspecting victims to cold-hearted women who wanted them for their money.

The two main male characters, Oswald Groggs (Charles Ruggles) and Chester Hamilton (Sidney Blackmer), went to jail for failing to pay alimony. Alimony jail was something of a party for the men, but it was still jail. Oswald was married to an overweight woman who was already dating another man--the only dishonest man in the film. He was looking forward to Oswald's alimony as much as his ex-wife was.

Chester Hamilton (Sidney Blackmer), Oswald's boss, was married to an unyielding vamp. She wanted her full alimony and not a penny less.

The only decent woman in this dreck was Dorothy Blaine (Phyllis Barry), Chester's secretary. And wouldn't you know it, she was in love with Chester.

That was a common fantasy (and theme) back then; the idea of secretaries falling in love with their bosses. For reference see "Baby Face" (1933), "Beauty and the Boss" (1932), "Skyscraper Souls" (1932), "The Office Wife" (1930), "Morning Glory" (1933), "Jennie Gerhardt" (1933), "Behind Office Doors" (1931), "Lawyer Man" (1933), and countless others. We're to believe that female employees fell in love with their bosses back then and not that they felt compelled to be romantically involved with them to keep their jobs.

Dorothy (Sidney Blackmer) had to sit idly by while her foolish boss exited one failed marriage to a gold digger and entered another to Phyllis Van Kamp aka Fanny Malone (Verree Teasdale), a professional man-swindler. Dorothy was hopelessly in love with the man that said to her, "You're not like a woman at all Dorothy. I mean you're... you're dependable and reliable like a man. No feminine nonsense."

Yeah, that's the vibe of this movie.

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Like his boss, butler Charles "Charlie" Ruggles (as Oswald Groggs) is jailed for missing alimony payments. "It's like paying for a dead horse," he feels. Unfortunately for the delinquent men, ex-wives have to eat in order to remain overweight and lazy for their lovers. After washing floors, Mr. Ruggles is freed, by wealthy Sidney Blackmer (as Chester Hamilton), who encourages his servant to take a vacation. Ruggles checks into a resort hotel where, posing as a rich African game hunter, he attracts a lot of feminine attention. Gold-digger Verree Teasdale (as Fanny Malone) takes advantage of both men. Cheap and offensive, at best.

** Good-Bye Love (11/10/33) H. Bruce Humberstone ~ Charles Ruggles, Verree Teasdale, Sidney Blackmer, Phyllis Barry

When the wealthy Wall Street businessman Chester Hamilton (Sidney Blackmer) is arrested for missing the payment of due alimonies to his ex-wife, he finds his butler Oswald Groggs (Charles Ruggles) in the jail arrested for the same motive. Chester gives US$ 2,500.00 to Oswald to pay his debts, but the butler gives only part of the money to his ex-wife and travels to the seashore on vacation pretending to be the wealthy "Sir" Oswald Groggs. The gold digger Phyllis Van Kamp a.k.a. Fanny Malone (Verree Teasdale) mistakenly believes he is an aristocrat British playboy and has a brief affair with him. Oswald falls in love for her and pays her expensive hotel bill and buys a valuable ring among other presents; after draining his money, Fanny leaves him. Oswald returns to Chester's home and he has a surprise when he finds that his boss has just married Fanny. He tells the truth to Chester and together with his friends and his secretary Dorothy Blaine (Phyllis Barry), they plot a scheme against Fanny to get a divorce.

In 2009, it is funny to see the moral values and clichés of 1933 in this dated but entertaining comedy. The well succeeded men are white; the servants are mostly black; the women are gold diggers or a fragile and naive secretary in love with her boss. The DVD released by Alpha Home Entertainment is not restored and has a bad quality of image and sound which associated to the absence of subtitles make difficult for a foreigner to understand part of the dialogs. My vote is six.

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