Biography of a Bachelor Girl

This for me very unsatisfying movie seemed to change viewpoints half-way through. Most of it is just tepid fluff, but on occasion in the first part the magazine editor, played by Montgomery, makes a few short speeches about bringing down vapid politicians like the would-be one played by E E Horton, and big money, like Horton's soon-to-be father-in-law, Kennicutt. In that sense he sounds like a humorless version of Clark Gable's newspaper reporter in "It Happened One Night", which had been released just the year before. Most Americans were suffering through the Depression by 1935, when this picture came out, so there was a ready market for criticism of the wealthy, who continued to enjoy life while the rest struggled to keep their heads above water.

But as the picture goes on, Montgomery's character sounds angrier and angrier about this. And our way of viewing his anger is changed by Harding's character, who tells him that, while she originally saw him as a crusader, she now sees him as wanting to persecute the wealthy.

From that point on, Montgomery's character is presented as some sort of closet Communist because his father was killed by strike-breakers during a coal miners' labor unrest. And Harding's character, who has lived among the wealthy, does not want anything to do with that. The very ambiguous final scene leaves us up in the air on whether she will accept him as she has grown to see him - and told us to see him.

But how many in the audience would care? There is absolutely NO chemistry between Harding and Montgomery, none whatsoever. It does not help that she is made up to look much older than he, whereas in fact Harding only had two years on her costar.

In the same respect, she comes off as so understated in this movie that we cannot believe she had torrid affairs with many famous men. She really seems almost sexless.

There are minor faults as well, such as the Tennessee accents. The leads, except for Montgomery, are all supposed to be from the Volunteer State, and on occasion each attempts a slight Southern accent. But then it vanishes completely.

I got nothing out of this movie other than the occasional pleasure of Harding's voice when she spoke softly. That was really very beautiful.

The rest just became aggravating.

Ann Harding is about to have ghost written her Biography Of A Bachelor Girl. She's a portrait painter, but in a part years before such a thing was an occurrence she's more of a professional celebrity. She paints famous and near famous people's portraits and gets involved with them. She's even got a ghostwriter, the iconoclastic Robert Montgomery who hates even the very idea of her.

One person who is very concerned is Edward Everett Horton who knew her back when and he doesn't want Ann writing about him. He's marrying Una Merkel and her father Charles Richman is Horton's chief backer in the Red state he would be representing.

Montgomery may quit the project anyway because he's getting angrier and angrier about someone he's developing feelings for.

Biography Of A Bachelor Girl is something a decade later Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn might have done. Surely it would be better know if they had. But that's not taking anything away from Montgomery and Harding.

In the supporting cast you'll like Edward Arnold who is a foreign born composer of uncertain nationality. Arnold he's kind of fallen for Harding himself, but he has a sort of bemused tolerance for all that's going on around him. Charles Richman is one tyrannical tyrant, thinking he has the right to tell everyone else how to live. He gets a lot of rebellion in his close circle for his trouble.

Montgomery and Harding are surely not as well known to today's audience. But Biography Of A Bachelor Girl should be better known. This one's a sleeper and a keeper.

Cynical magazine editor Richard 'Dickie' Kurt (Robert Montgomery) is desperate to sign up artist Marion Forsythe (Ann Harding) for a biography. He doesn't care about her artistry. He's much more enticed by rumors of her celebrity relationships. Leander 'Bunny' Nolan (Edward Everett Horton) is running for the Senate and fears his past fling with Marion could turn into a scandal.

Kurt is too mean. First, his lack of bedside manners would make signing Marion nearly impossible. I question how a guy like him would get such a task. I guess an editor could be that bitter and I can see a hardnosed reporter like him rising up to the job. He just wouldn't be asked to do something that needs him to be nice. More than that, Montgomery is playing so hard that he has no chemistry with Ann Harding. It's almost reflexive that she's going in the complete opposite direction. The movie is trying to use the opposites attract proposition. Normally, romantic combat works but he's just too harsh. It's not his anger. It's his hate.

Robert Montgomery is the editor of a muckraking magazine. He wants Ann Harding to write her memoirs. She is a painter who has gained a notorious reputation on two continents. She returns to the US broke, and accepts the offer. As she works with Montgomery on the book, she grows kinder and Montgomery grouchier. Also old boyfriend, Edward Everett Horton shows up with fiancée Una Merkel and her father, Charles Richman, who fear for Horton's political future if all is known.

There are hints that the S. N. Behrman play this was based on had been hot stuff, and had it been released a couple of years earlier, it would have been very funny, particularly given the farceurs in its cast. I can see the ghosts of many opportunities for exits with slammed doors and circumlocutious language. However, in those two years, the production code had passed, and not only might no one even discuss what Miss Harding had done - not that it was necessary- but no one gets angry enough to slam a door. Montgomery expends all his energy in angry speeches, Miss Harding is too much the lady, and Horton more childlike.

It's probably all that MGM figures they could get past the Hays office. Too bad.

She's nearly forgotten today, but Ann Harding was a true cinema aristocrat in the '30s, a movie star who didn't look like one (she wore practically no makeup) but was lovely all the same. She didn't act like one, either. Here, she's a free- thinking artist (referred to by other characters as "Bohemian," and it's clearly an insult) whose projected tell-all autobio is going to put an old flame's political career in jeopardy, and she's so obviously more intelligent than any of her co- players that you can't take your eyes off her. Calm, ladylike, and vaguely amused by her surroundings, she's a lot like her contemporary Irene Dunne, but less forced. The movie, from a smart S.N. Behrman stage comedy, is a civilized affair where characters bat around words like "propinquity" without flinching and the slowish pacing feels right. Perfect it's not, particularly in the male casting: Robert Montgomery, as her perpetually dissatisfied editor, doesn't stint on the character's unlikability, which leaves one rooting only halfheartedly for their romance to alight. And Edward Everett Horton, as her compromised ex-beau, isn't believable for a moment, being so obviously... Edward Everett Horton. On the other hand, Edward Arnold, the screen's best Evil Plutocrat of the '30s, is here a quiet, sympathetic spurned beau, and completely charming. It's a pleasant journey back to a time where the general public was more sophisticated, though without Ms. Harding's presence, it wouldn't add up to nearly as much.