A Ceia das Donzelas

I enjoyed "Love Before Breakfast" very much and think with a slight re-write it could have earned a 9, as it was a nice little screwball comedy.

The film begins with a very rich industrialist (Preston Foster) buying an oil company just so he can transfer a guy overseas (Cesar Romero) in order to have a chance at the girl (Carole Lombard). Now Foster isn't a total jerk--the transfer is a promotion for Romero and he's thrilled to take it. The plan is for Romero to stay in Japan for two years and then return to marry Lombard. However, it's pretty obvious that this relationship has some problems--not the least of which is the conniving Foster. Now it could be easy to dislike Foster since he is manipulative and a bit of a stalker, however, the writers did a good job making his character likable. He's rich but a pretty swell guy. Heck, I might have married him if he'd asked! But, as for Lombard, she gives him a very hard time--after all, Foster IS responsible for the boyfriend going overseas. And, after a while, she does come to like Foster and is willing to marry him instead. However, Foster isn't happy with this--after all, if Romero was home, would she still be willing to do this? So, he brings Romero back and treats him with every kindness to allow Lombard a chance to choose. Who she chooses, how and why is something you'll just have to see for yourself.

I liked this story very much, but did have a complaint about one thing. I think that Lombard's character was made a bit too volatile and annoying. It got bad enough towards the end that I could not believe that Foster would still want such a nasty...um...'lady'. As for the rest of the cast, they are quite dandy. I liked Lombard's mother and the dog (an adorable little thing), but I especially liked the small part played by Richard Carle--he wasn't in the movie a lot, but was great in the scenes where he appeared.

Overall, an enjoyable little comedy only marred, very slightly, by a female character that is, at times, just a bit too annoying and snippy. Still, give it a look--it's a nice forgotten little film.

Love Before Breakfast features an amusing love triangle between three shallow, selfish characters, played to perfection by Carole Lombard, Preston Foster, and Cesar Romero. Foster, a filthy rich oil baron, "pushes buttons" to have employee Romero, Carole's fiancé, sent to Japan, so he can move in on Carole. Carole is devastated the man she loves is leaving her for two years, but the unworthy object of said love has a hard time hiding his glee at the promotion the overseas job means. Even as his ship sails with poor Carole tearfully waving goodbye, true love Ceasar can be seen at the railing obviously enjoying the attentions of a sexy countess, played with carnivorous exuberance by buxom Betty Lawford. Foster's character is such an egomaniac he smugly brags to Carole about his fiancé-to-Japan manipulation. Thus begins the battle of wills between Carole and Foster that lasts for the rest of this entertaining, witty, little "white telephone movie". They take turns alternately courting and resisting each other with lots of dirty tricks along he way. Both principles have wicked senses of humor. Preston thinks it's hilarious when Carole gets her eye blacked in a night club brawl she engineered. Her get-even prank is to set him up at the local riding club with an evil tempered horse that is sure to throw him. The entire episode at the stable is the funniest in this very amusing picture, except perhaps for the riotous closing scene.

One of the charms of this little comedy is very strong but subtle characterization, thanks to light comedy specialist Walter Lang's expert direction and a script which was surprisingly clever, considering that it seems to have been virtually committee written. Herbert Fields gets credit for the screenplay, but with input from no less than six other writers, including Preston Sturges! Of the Carole Lombard pictures yours truly has seen, this one gives her the best character. In some of her other movies she is just too much of a dizzy dame to be appealing. Especially in My Man Godfrey (1936), in which she's so foolish and childish, she seems almost retarded. In Love Before Breakfast Carole comes off more sophisticated, clever, and witty. Never mind she is spoiled, self-centered, wishy-washy, and lazy -- she lives in a swank apartment with her well-off mother (likeable Janet Beecher) and seems to have never even considered getting a job. And of course Carole is beautiful. Her beauty is well accented by Ted Tetzlaff's gloriously luminous black and white photography, a standout job here even in an era when terrific cinematography is practically taken for granted. The left side of Carole Lombard's gorgeous face was tragically scarred in a late 1920's automobile accident. Even the best of Hollywood makeup couldn't quite cover it, so that special care had to be taken with lighting and camera angles. Tetzlaff washes Carole's closeups in tenebristic shadowing which illuminates only the right side. A generous use of soft focus for her closeups seems to have set the tone for the overall look of the picture, and a very pleasing look it is.

Love Before Breakfast is a typical example of a type of picture called "white telephone movie" in the trade. Younger people, used to telephones of all sizes, shapes, and colors, may not remember, as sadly aged oldblackandwhite does, when nearly every one of them was an unglamorous, utilitarian, flat black. Only rich folks had the glossy white ones that you had to special order and pay extra for on your telephone bill. Hence white telephone movies are about rich guys and rich babes lounging in their ritzy apartments and palatial mansions, going out to glittering night clubs, sailing on their swell yachts, and gabbing on their white telephones. Standard cinema history wisdom portrays this type of movie as especially made for the depressed poor of the Great Depression, who wanted to escape into such fantasies, rather than watch any realistic social melodrama that would remind them of their own distressed lives. The Depression may have made white telephone movies more popular all right, but please note that the same type of picture was very popular in the 1920's, a period of previously unexampled prosperity, and continues to to be popular in various altered forms to this day.

Love Before Breakfast is a solid white telephone job. Charming cast, clever story, plush sets, sensuous cinematography, witty, amusing dialog, fast pacing, and funny gags. A lot of glossy, smooth Old Hollywood entertainment packed into and hour and ten minutes.

The film's premise is straightforward: Lombard plays Kay Colby, a young socialite convinced she's in love with Bill Wadsworth (Cesar Romero), a fellow quickly identified as the douche who is all wrong for her. Her Mr. Right is Preston Foster's Scott Miller, who happens to own the oil company Wadsworth works for.

We quickly discover Miller is in love with Colby. He's also manipulative and sneaky, for as the film opens we find Miller is purposefully sending her rather self-centred beau away on assignment on a ship to Japan . And he manages to finagle it so that his own Ms. Wrong, a yappy countess with an entourage of similarly disposed dogs, is going on the same ship. Colby and Wadsworth bump into him (more accurately, they bump into his parked car and then him) at the dock.

So the stage is set for an epic 2nd act featuring the screwball comedy battle of wills, which will steadily escalate in madness and will only let up in the last minute.

The film is not as wicked as 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith', which has very similar sort of screwball formula (sneaky guy pursuing girl as opposed to sneaky girl pursuing guy ala 'Bringing up Baby'), but like that film, this one features Lombard doing what she does best: make you want to kiss and kill her at the same time. She's so good that it makes up for the inadequacies of the leading man, Preston Foster, who is not a good enough listener as an actor to create the sort of chemistry a William Powell or Cary Grant could form with an ugly lamp (see Powell's work in 'My Man Godfrey' opposite Lombard, whom he had not too long before filming divorced!). Foster's all right when we don't have to watch him react to Lombard, but his comic timing and general shtick is uneven. I suspect the director must have figured this out, as the camera is kind in allowing her to create the illusion of a relationship twixt the two a fair amount of the time.

Another interesting phenomenon is the visceral similarity in appearance of the two men (they look alike and both have dark hair with trimmed mustaches) vying for Lombard's Colby, which was aesthetically dissonant for me. I think at the very least one of the staches could have gone, just so douche-bag and good guy don't become perceptually associated in our minds.

The indulgence of quibbles aside, the film's moments of charm and Lombard's mastery of screwball comedy's delectable form of erotica make it well worth seeing if you're fond of the genre.

Last Night I watched A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011)a movie that supposedly represents a modern day romantic comedy, I didn't get one laugh and the bevy of actresses in that movie all combined couldn't compare to Carole Lombard.

I love Lombard's movies she's always entertaining as well as strikingly beautiful, this movie came out the same year as "My Man Godfrey" and while this movie can't compare to Godfrey I think Carole with her starring role in this film is more of a showcase for her. The plot is nothing special, spoiled rich girl and powerful businessman go head to head, but it's the performances especially the chemistry between Lombard and Preston that make this movie worth seeing.

The best thing one can say about LOVE BEFORE BREAKFAST is that it looks wonderful with sparkling cinematography by Ted Tetzlaff, lovely gowns for Lombard by Travis Banton, and stunning art direction by Albert S. D'Agostino, making one forget this film was from Universal, then not one of the major studios and only occasionally producing "A" movies such as this. The movie wonderfully captures the privileged life of the rich with ocean liners, elegant New York nightclubs, weekends yachting with friends or private horseback riding trails. There's no Depression on this planet with executives buying $2,000 worth of charity raffle tickets without batting an eye which surely appealed to the considerably less comfortable general public of the era. Add to the mix a beautiful, appealing heroine in the form of Carole Lombard and what more could you want. Well maybe a better script, better leading men, and more appealing characters.

Lombard stars as a socialite engaged to rising businessman Cesar Romero somewhat unaware of the obsession another acquaintance, ultra rich Preston Foster, has for her. Foster buys out the oil company Romero works for so he can give him a promotion and get him out the way - a two-year stint as a vice president in the Japan offices!! The brash, unctuous but supposedly (according to the screenwriter) agreeable Foster can't help but brag about his machinations to Lombard moments after Romero is on his way to Japan, to which Lombard is quite naturally repelled. Considerable time is then devoted to further control-freak methods by Foster to win Lombard who comes to despise the man she (accurately) calls a "little Napoleon". Eventually, he wears her down and she agrees to marry him if blatantly admitting she is not in love with him. Having won his prize, Foster is happy enough with this but soon decides he would rather win her completely so he brings Romero back to New York, but he still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

The Preston Foster character is so charmless and controlling it's good to see Lombard fighting him every step of the way but it's difficult to see any supposed "good points" the man is supposed to have. Most curious is Lombard's mother Janet Beecher favoritism for Foster of her daughter's two suitors, is it simply because he is the far richer beau? At one point late in the film Foster is actually quite indifferent to Lombard's safety which appalls Beecher if only for a moment. Couldn't she then see the real man whom her daughter was well familiar with? Lombard is terrific in this movie, raising it to the level of a fairly entertaining movie, one can imagine what a total misfire it would be without her. Some reviewers have commented she gets rather abrasive herself into the film but given her non-stop harassment in the guise of love (or more accurately, obsession) from Foster, I'd say her hostility and attitude are more than justified. Foster is quite unappealing but it's not his fault as much as the screenwriter's take on the character, although his lack of appeal is undercut by the blandness and shallowness of Lombard's other suitor, Cesar Romero. Joyce Compton has a cute bit as a visiting southern débutante whom Lombard briefly entangles in one of her payback stunts against Foster.

The movie quickly wraps things up with a quickie ending that would seem direct steal from Lombard's classic MY MAN GODFREY if not for the fact that this movie predated that legendary film by several months.