Quatre femmes à la recherche du bonheur

Although no one on this film got any closer to Budapest than the new 20th Century Fox studio's back lot, Ladies In Love is a nice romantic film about three women who agree to split the costs of an apartment in a swank Budapest neighborhood. The better for them to catch good husbands and the three go about to work.

Janet Gaynor works as a lab assistant to Dr. Don Ameche who basically treats her like a doormat. She must like the idea because she then goes to work for egotistical magician Alan Mowbray as his assistant and general factotum. Mowbray is in a part that later on Clifton Webb would have specialized in.

Loretta Young thinks she's found true love in Tyrone Power. But Power is a heel in this one and he's some kind of minor nobility. He trades up for Virginia Field who not only has title, but money. This was the role that made Darryl Zanuck decide that Power would be the franchise player of his new 20th Century Fox studio. Power would play a hero/heel in many of his films, but here he's a straight heel. Seventh billed in the cast list he got a lot of fan mail from this film that helped Zanuck in his evaluation.

Constance Bennett is the oldest and most experienced of the three. She's got a thing going with another titled gent Paul Lukas. But one fine day a sly little minx from the country shows up in Simone Simon. She's supposed to be a teenager, but this girl is most mature in her wiles. She's got Lukas panting and wanting more.

In the end one girl gets what she wants, the other two have to settle as they leave their apartment in the ritzy part of Budapest. A close call to tragedy also happens to one.

Ladies In Love is a nice romantic film in which a whole cast gave a nice ensemble effort. Some futures were made because of this film.

This pleasant little movie set in Budapest caught me by surprise. With so many older films you can predict where the movie will end up...but not with this one. The ending caught me out of the blue...and for that alone it's worth seeing.

The plot to this film is very much like the later film, "How to Marry a Millionaire". Three young ladies, Susie (Loretta Young), Yoli (Constance Bennett) and Martha (Janet Gaynor) are friends and decided to pool their money and rent a really swanky apartment instead of three separate crappy ones. The goal of this isn't only to live well but to help the women snag swanky husbands as well--and the film is all about their attempts to find the rich man of their dreams.

While I didn't love this film, the acting was very nice (you also get to see the likes of Don Ameche, Tyrone Power, Paul Lukas and Alan Mowbray in the film as well) and the story reasonably interesting. But as I mentioned above, what really caught my by surprise was the ending. It was NOT by the numbers and predictable. Overall not a great film but well worth watching.

Just an addition to other comments; this film while definitely Hollywood has a European feel to it. There is a definite desperate,cynical air to it that would make you think it's director was a continental director transplanted to the US. I checked and Griffith is from Virginia. However, he was educated in Europe-this of course proves nothing but maybe he was influenced by familiarity with European film. Anyway this "feel" I get from the film makes it more interesting to me. But whatever it is worth seeing just for the great cast!

Ladies in Love (1936)

** (out of 4)

Janet Gaynor, Loretta Young, Constance Bennett, Simone Simon, Don Ameche, Paul Lukas and Tyrone Power highlight this all-star cast but the final film doesn't do any of them justice. Set in Budapest, three women (Gaynor, Young, Bennett) move into an apartment and soon we see them struggle with love and work issues. The cast here is extremely good but the screenplay is extremely poor. It's clear Fox wanted to throw all their stars in the pot but it's too bad they didn't bother coming up with a better screenplay. The movie is pretty much all dialogue and there's way too much of it and none of it comes off too interesting. The actors all do fine work on their own but the screenplay doesn't give them too much to do and the relationships never come off believable. Gaynor steals the film as a poor girl who sells ties trying to make ends meet. Ameche is also very good as the doctor who doesn't realize he's in love with Gaynor's character.

"Ladies in Love" is a light comedy romance set in Budapest in the 1920s. The best thing about it is a cast loaded with talent of the day. Most of the cast were well established on the silver screen, but a couple were early in their careers. While the plot is light and just fairly interesting, the cast makes it worth watching. That's so especially for movie buffs, who know and recognize a considerable list of actors and actresses. This film affords an opportunity to see several of them in their early years of the sound era. And, most of the roles are good.

Janet Gaynor and Loretta Young give the best performances as Martha and Susie, respectively. Constance Bennett's Yoli Haydn has been on the party circuit with wealthy men who come to the city for short periods of leisure and enjoyment. She joins the other two so the three can pool their funds to afford an upscale apartment while they work and party with men until each finds her "mister right."

Yoli is waiting for the rich guy who will deck her with jewels, and while she is escorting one now, she doesn't want to bare her feelings toward him because he will be returning to South America and his mines in the wilds. Susie would like to be able to have her own ladies shop and then meet a Prince Charming who will sweep her off her feet. Martha is the more practical one who wants a man she can love and care for, who will love her in return, and provide a home and family.

A fourth woman enters the story in Simone Simon as Marie Armand. She's 26 years old but plays an older teenager. Simon made three dozen movies in America and Europe before she quit acting in middle age.

The story has some drama as well, but the light nature persists as these women meet the various men who will be in their lives - and then out of them for a couple. The best comedy by far occurs between Gaynor's Martha and two men in her life. Don Ameche plays a young psychologist, Dr. Rudi Imre; and Alan Mowbray plays a master magician, Paul Sandor. Paul Lukas has the largest male role as John Barta, the South American mining mogul, who has come to Budapest to find a wife. Tyrone Power is a young duke and acquaintance of Barta.

Surprisingly, most of this cast had a considerable portfolio by 1936. One of them had already won an Oscar - Janet Gaynor in 1929. Loretta Young was the youngest female of the cast - just 23, but she had more films than any of the rest to her credit - 65 since she began in silent films as a child star. She would win an Oscar in 1948 and add two Golden Globes and three Emmys to her career honors.

Two of the men would also win Oscars in their careers. Paul Lukas was the oldest member of the cast at 41, and he would win an Oscar in 1944. Don Ameche is one of the newcomers - having made just four films before this. But his star would rise fast and he would win an Oscar late in his career - in 1986. Of the remaining cast, Tyrone Power was in just his sixth film, and the 22-year-old within a year would become the leading male in all of his pictures, and a super star by the time of his early death from a heart attack at age 44 in 1958.

Power and Young would be in half a dozen movies together. Ameche and Young were in half a dozen; and all three where in two films. Another reviewer noted a sort of surprise ending for this film. Well, it's not the usual Hollywood happy ending, but it seems about right for the people here. It's not sad, but more down to earth and real.

Here are some favorite lines from this film.

Martha Kerenye, "What he does takes just as much science as raising rabbits." Dr. Rudi Imre, "I'm using these for experiments. That's not raising them." Martha, "Well, you started with only two and now you've got 24." Dr. Imre, "Well, that's only a biological coincidence."

Martha Kerenye, "And you're gonna try and explain my feelings to me!" Dr. Rudi Imre, "Well don't you wanna be able to understand your emotional responses?" Martha, "I do understand them." Dr. Imre, "Not thoroughly. See, what we have is a fairly common occurrence. Young woman - type B, with maternal instincts. Comes in contact with masculine type B - temperamental, but exotic personality. Result - young woman is dazzled. Her original drive to protect is transferred into romantic love. It's profoundly simple." Martha, "I am not dazzled." Dr. Imre, "Oh yes, you are. But you don't know it."