The Goose and the Gander

Kay Francis is a divorcee who happens to overhear her ex husband's new wife (Genevieve Tobin) plotting an assignation with her would be lover (George Brent). Francis hatches an elaborate plot to lure Tobin and Brent to her holiday home, and then expose them to her ex, so that she can get him back. However, things start to go wrong, not least because Francis begins to be attracted to Brent, and he to her. and the plot becomes even more confused by a couple of jewel thieves, until just about everyone is pretending to be someone else, in fact it reminds me a bit of a PG.Wodehouse novel, which generally contain several imposters. It is all quite hilarious.

This is just a real cute movie, especially on a drab, frigid winter's day. Kay Francis sparkles and her wardrobe, is as ever, beautiful. George Brent is bright & breezy and seems to be giving the audience inclusive, knowing wink. It's a fun way to spend an hour.

... And a shining example of how to do precode in the production code era. Georgiana (Kay Francis) is vacationing at a seaside resort. She accidentally overhears Bob McNear (George Brent) and Betty (Genevieve Tobin) planning a rendezvous. It's actually Betty planning one, as she wants to get one over on her husband. She's in love with the idea, not with Bob. Georgiana is amused by this conversation but doesn't think anything more of it since she doesn't know these people until she later runs into her ex-husband, Ralph (Ralph Forbes), in the resort ballroom that night. He is happy to see her, says he regrets divorcing her two years before, and points out his current wife, across the room, who broke up the marriage. It turns out that this current wife is Betty!

So Georgiana gets an idea. She will fix it so that Betty and Bob wind up in the same place that her ex-husband Ralph does, showing Betty up for what she is, and thus getting Ralph back. Like Betty, she is in love with the idea not the man. How she goes about arranging this is very creative and funny.

So, this movie might have been less fun with Georgiana the only one in the complete know for the entire film, so a couple of jewel thieves are inserted into all of this who also wind up at Betty and Bob's destination, with Georgiana having no idea who they are and what they are doing there. Meanwhile Bob and Georgiana, previously just mildly infatuated, begin to develop real feelings for one another.

So many romantic comedies did everything wrong when their wings were clipped by the production code. This one is almost perfect by being genuinely funny and implying things right up to the edge of what was allowed at the time. The cast is perfect. Brent and Francis always had great chemistry, Tobin is delightfully wicked in a harmless kind of way if that is possible, Forbes is clueless as Georgiana's first husband - a real stuffed shirt, and honorable mention has to go to William Austin in a very small but memorable role as Ralph's brother. He manages to be, in every way possible, a completely unappealing man. I'd highly recommend this one.

This is the best of the Kay Francis vehicles, and I had never heard of it before a couple days ago.

Kay is stylish, George Brent actually looks handsome. And there is a real plot, not just cutesy and/or tear-jerking posturing.

Married couples, formerly married couples. And -- a couple who are jewel thieves.

It zings along and is great, amusing, romantic fun.

The best thing about this romantic comedy is how good it looks thanks to cinematographer Sidney Hickok. This 1935 but the interior scenes look like they were shot in the 1950's. Hickok was a brilliant cinematographer whose career began in the silents and he would go on to shoot such films as The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, To Have and Have Not, A slight Case of Murder, Gentleman Jim and the sci-fi classic Them. Charles Kenyon wrote the story and the screenplay about a woman who overhears the woman who stole away her husband planning a weekend affair with another man so she hatches an elaborate plan to embarrass the woman and her ex by diverting the cheating couple to her home and getting her ex to come over to catch them. Another couple who are jewel thieves are inadvertently lured into her trap and things start getting complicated. It's a good story and a good cast with Kay Francis, George Bret, Genevieve Tobin, John Eldredge, Claire Dodd, Ralph Forbes, William Austin and Helen Lowell. With the rampant infidelity theme this story was probably written with pre-code Hollywood in mind but with the code going into effect the year before it's release it was filmed as a little less salacious. Alfred E. Green who would make such films as The Jolson Story and The Jackie Robinson Story directs. it's a fun little film and I would give it a 7.0 out of 10.