Living on Love

Living On Love is a roadshow remake of Rafter Romance that William Powell and Ginger Rogers had done only four years earlier. Someone at RKO must have been stuck for an original story and recycle this one. The slightly less well known James Dunn and Whitney Bourne are in this film as leads.

It's a pleasant enough comedy concerning two people sharing a room at different hours. Whitney is a salesgirl working selling electric shavers for Franklin Pangborn who would like to get better acquainted and she works by day. Her night time roommate is Dunn who is an artist, but works at night as a truck dispatcher.

These two ships that pass in the night don't pass unnoticed and both have habits that annoy. But when they happen to meet there is an attraction that takes the entire running time of the film to bear fruit. Of course neither figure out that the other is the annoying roommate until almost the end of the film.

Living On Love is a pleasant enough screwball comedy with some other good supporting performances by Joan Woodbury as the daughter of the owner of a nearby restaurant that both leads meet at and who has an interest in Dunn. And best of all is Solly Ward as the landlord who for the want of a radio with all kinds of features rents that room with that arrangement to Bourne.

Some of the same comedy situations can also be found in The More The Merrier, a slightly better known film. Even with lesser known leads, Living On Love is your average screwball Thirties comedy much like it's predecessor.

Not having seen the original "Rafter Romance" of which this was a remake, I can only compare it with the many other light comedies of the period. Taken for what it is, a "B" movie (or maybe even "C"), it doesn't do badly.

One of the great virtues of the 1930's and early 40's comedies is their fast-paced dialog, seldom heard today. I can imagine the director snapping his fingers to keep the actors racing along. Good pace and timing can cover a multitude of weaknesses in the script, and this movie rattles right along.

I wasn't rolling in the aisle, but this movie was worth a chuckle or three. If you've got nothing better planned, or you want some amusement on the box while you work on something else, curl up and enjoy -- I got lots of knitting done.

Maybe I just like Whitney Bourne better than Ginger Rogers but I liked this one better than "Rafter Romance". It is 12 minutes shorter so it has no filler. It is short and sweet. It "feels" more like a silent film than the earlier version because it really hops along.

I like Ginger Rogers in "Major & The Minor", otherwise, I cant think of a movie I really like her in. Maybe "Vivacous Lady". She's OK in the Fred Astaire movies but he is so smug I find them barely watchable. Whitney Bourne on the other hand is a super gorgeous woman that I would like to see a lot more of.

IMDb wants a few more lines out of me to print this: I find it interesting that Whitney Bourne was born in 1914 and died in 1988 and her female rival in this movie, Joan Woodbury, was born a year later and died a year later. What are the chances of THAT!

Landlord Eli West needs to pay for his radio, so he leases Mary Wilson's apartment to the Ghonoff Brothers, but West arranges for Mary to live in the basement apartment, which just happens to be rented by struggling artist Gary Martin. No problem, however (thinks West) since Mary works as a saleslady by day, and Gary a night shift trucking manager by night, so they will never have to see each other. Conflicts soon arise with the two not being able to stand the other's habits and each tries to make the other fed up enough to leave. To further complicate things, Mary & Gary have already met and have developed a crush on each other, but circumstances will drive the two to stop seeing the other as well as the fact that the forces are about to reveal their apartment secret together. It's hard to tell if this is better than the 1933 version, Rafter Romance, but it does have its moments as the remake plays more for laughs than the 33 version, but the plot is hardly jointed and there is hardly anything new in this version, as well as downplaying the romantic aspect of the film by not really making us wonder if they will truly fall for each other. Dunn, Bourne, Pangborn, Woodbury, Kennedy, & Ward are all in fine B movie form, and its a fun 60 minutes for all. Rating, 5.

James Dunn has quit his job and gone to work at lower pay on the graveyard shift. Whitney Bourne hasn't worked regularly, and is now selling electric shavers on commission. Neither can afford their rooms, so landlord Solly Ward lets them split a room: Dunn gets it in the day, Miss Bourne at night. They don't know each other and regularly send annoyed notes. When they meet in person, they fall in love, unawares of their living arrangements.

This remake of RAFTER ROMANCE takes the Cox-and-Box story and retreats int simplistic humor to keep it Code-compliant: lots of puns in the names (the apartment building is "The Venus De Milo Arms", two characters are "Ghonoff Brothers"), and 1930s-safe wolves like Franklin Pangborn as Miss Courtney's boss. But despite the plethora of comic talent, including om Kennedy, Chester Clute, and Jimmy Conlin, there's too much grouchiness in the script and performances to keep any but the most sadistic audience smiling. Consistently. The result is another decent timewaster from RKO during a rote era.