Pillow to Post

Sweet, silly little trifle is merely an excuse to see Ida Lupino get a chance to put the heavy dramatics aside briefly as a career girl who becomes more pixelated as the complications pile up.

The story addresses the wartime housing shortage and some of the subterfuge that had to be resorted to just to have a decent place to rest your head at times. Of course misunderstandings abound.

Ida is charming and adept at comedy, William Prince is fine but it's a shame that since she rarely did comedy she didn't have a chance to costar with one of the master of the form like Cary Grant or Clark Gable. Sydney Greenstreet is funny as Prince's commanding officer as always relishing a chance to also break from the villain role and play comedy.

All together a cute little ride with nothing important to say but a nice little picture nonetheless.

Ida Lupino stars as a saleslady working for her father's company. As it was during WWII, women were assuming many jobs held by men and Ida does this to help out with the war effort. However, she turns out to be pretty bad at sales and by the time she gets to one remote location, she's desperate. But things only get worse, as there is a military base nearby and so there are no spare hotel rooms. On a lark, she checks into a motel designated for spouses of servicemen. However, she's single and lies to get the room--and unless she wants to get tossed out, she'll have to find some guy to pose as her husband. The unsuspecting shmoe is a young lieutenant (William Prince)--whose nice gesture completely blows up in his face. And now, they are stuck together--otherwise the Lieutenant will be in serious trouble with his Colonel. Can all this be straightened out and Lupino and Prince avoid serious consequences?

This is a nice screwy comedy that was pretty timely--as there was a severe housing shorting during the war. In many ways, the theme is reminiscent of the wonderful comedy "The More the Merrier"--though this latter film is much more of a classic. "Pillow to Post", on the other hand, is rather slight...enjoyable but slight.

snafu

This is about the first comedy film that I have ever seen Ida Lupino appear in and she was fantastic. Always knew Ida was multi-talented as an actress, director and producer. In this film Lupino (Jean Howard), "The Devil's Rain",'75, appears as a young gal who wants to work in her father's oil business and decides to become a traveling sales gal, which at the time was unspeakable in that type of business. Jean has to find a proper place to sleep on her travels, and since it was war time, she decided to get hold of a Lt. in the Army who would have living quarters for wives. This lucky Lt. was portrayed by William Prince, (Lt. Don Mallory), "Nuts",'87, who unwillingly helped Jean make this a reality. Another big shock in this film is the appearance of Sydney Greenstreet,(Col. Michael Otley), "Flamingo Road",'49 and of course, the "Maltese Falcon", with Humphrey Bogart. In this role Col. Otley is Don Mallory's Commanding Officer and they live together in the housing unit. It is a very enjoyable funny film and was probably a big shocker for people in 1945, it sure takes a person way back in the PAST.

This film hasn't been put on VHS or DVD. I saw it on the Turner Classic Movie channel in early July, 2007. What starts out to be a rather predictable wartime "B" light comedy, emerges shortly as a full-blown screwball comedy of the most delightful sort. Ida Lupino, of all people,shows that she can do comedy as well as Carol Lombard. After her years at Columbia, Warner Brothers finally discovered her broad acting talent. (Would that Columbia and MGM had discovered the comedic abilities of Lucille Ball decades earlier.) This low-budget gem, based on a play, reveals quite a bit about wartime America's economy and socio-economic structure. But mostly it's about a romantic entanglement and mistaken identity, two much-used devices that need first rate acting to pull off. Here, it happens. Even Sidney Greenstreet manages his atypical role in an impressive way. I don't know why the producers decided to insert a meaningless nightclub scene featuring two minutes of Louis Armstrong "and his orchestra," but perhaps this was just a way to attract more viewers. By the way, this is one of Willy Best's best films. He was finally given something to do in a movie that didn't involve Charlie Chan. Paul Harvey and William Prince also handled their roles admirably. In short, this is a long- forgotten winner.

I'll be the first to admit that this movie will probably never be regarded as one of the Top 10 Classics. However, this movie continues to captivate me.

The plot while predictable, is engaging and the characters are interesting (especially, Ida Lupino). Ida Lupino is a cutie pie in this movie!

I would highly recommend this movie!