Love in the Rough

A young, skinny, twenty five year old robert montgomery, in an early role. When the boss drags kelly along to improve his golf game, things get wacky. Kelly goes looking for a girl. This starts with a plain, simple story...it's a good print of a film from almost 100 years ago.. one of the early talkies. Sure, there are a couple of musical numbers, but they move right along and don't slow it down too much. A fun dance number by earl tucker, about thirty minutes in; sadly, he died at age thirty. Co-stars dorothy jordan. The middle part seems to be a bunch of vaudeville bits that don't really go anywhere. Kind of drags for a long time.... the women talk in high, squeaky, little girl voices that must have been desired in 1930. Directed by charles reisner. He had started in the early silents. This was based on the play by vincent lawrence. Honestly, not much of a story, really. It's just ok. I think part of the entertainment was just hearing people talk in films. Although i could do without those high squeaky voices that they seemed to use back then.

Love in the Rough is a B comedy film starring Robert Montgomery before he attempted more serious films. It also features Benny Rubin, a talented Jewish comedian, who was far more successful in burlesque and vaudeville than in early Hollywood films. The plot of an office worker becoming a ringer in a golf foursome is fairly different from the norm, and the filming of the episodes in the open air, rather than a studio, gives it an air of authenticity.

After about forty minutes, however, the film begins to lose its energy, and bogs down quite a bit. The end result is a pleasant, but not too stimulating comedy that captures the mentality of the 1930s corporate mindset for impressing others at the club.

Only three years before "Love in the Rough", MGM made "Spring Fever" with William Haines. Why would they remake a film so quickly? Well, Hollywood OFTEN did remakes only a few years later...but most importantly they did it in this case since the original was a silent and this Robert Montgomery version had sound. In fact, because it was a sound picture, a few songs were added as well to take advantage of the new technology.

When the story starts, Mr. Waters is being a very grouchy boss and starts firing employees for the littlest things. Soon you learn why....he's angry because his golf game stinks. However, when he learns that the employee he just fired, Jack (Robert Montgomery), is an excellent golfer, he re-hires him and begs him to help him improve his game.

Jack and his friend, Benny (Benny Rubin), arrive at the club to play some golf. And, instead of focusing just on his golf game, he's entranced by a lovely lady who is also there. Now, instead of putting all his attention on golf, he's obsessed with Marilyn (Dorothy Jordan).

In many ways, the original film, "Spring Fever" is a better film. Sure, it's a silent but it as also an exceptional silent...one of Haines' best movies. This remake, however, suffers for many reasons. First, the songs don't help the film and the people singing really were NOT singers but were being forced to be. As my daughter said..."they kinda sucked"! Second, and the biggest problem, is that the father-son relationship of the first movie was completely removed from "Love in the Rough". It's a shame, as it was the best aspect of the first film and really gave the film depth...and depth is NOT something you'd notice in "Love in the Rough". To make it worse, Benny Rubin was strictly added as comic relief...again, something they didn't have nor needed in the original. Overall, it's very slight and lightweight....not bad but also not all that good nor memorable.

Jack Kelly (Robert Montgomery) and his buddy Benny Leibowitz get in trouble with their boss, Mr. Waters. They get fired until Waters reveals that he desperately needs help with his golf game. Jack volunteers to help. Jack and Benny arrive at the country club. Jack is completely taken with wealthy wheat heiress Marilyn Crawford.

With the switch to talkies, there is a flood of musicals for the obvious reason. Not all of them are good. I really can't tell if the songs are any good. The white people do their white bread singing and flapper dancing. A few black folks add a dash of coloring. Well, the club is real and the exterior shots at Lake Norconian Club are grand. The comedy between Jack and Benny is mostly fine for old material although I'm not actually laughing. It's hard to grade sometimes. The romance is not much. I don't like when the actors become stationary. This is a lot of borderline takes.

The film is actually a musical comedy remake of the 1927 silent film "Spring Fever", which starred William Haines and Joan Crawford. Montgomery plays the part of wise-cracking shipping clerk Jack Kelly who gets a holiday at a resort courtesy of his employer when the employer learns that Kelly is a great golfer and the employer needs help with his own golf game. At the resort Kelly meets Marilyn Crawford, daughter of a wealthy industrialist, and the two fall in love. They elope with Marilyn believing that Kelly is wealthy too, but Kelly's conscience soon begins to bother him about the false pretenses under which he has married his new wife.

This movie lacks the poignancy of the silent "Spring Fever". Montgomery does a good job as Kelly, but nobody can really replace Joan Crawford as the leading lady. In fact, you get the feeling that this actress was hired for her musical talents - she is pretty good in the musical numbers - and then as audiences began to reject musical films in 1930, MGM cut a bunch of the musical numbers and was basically left with an ineffective leading lady in a film lacking a good plot. In the original, Kelly is marrying to up his station in life. In this film, Kelly falls in love with a girl who just happens to be the daughter of a wealthy man. This film replaces all of the drama of Spring Fever with a musical comedy style. The musical numbers are catchy, but the comedy is somewhat dated. Released in September 1930, it is a good example of how entertainment was transitioning from the Jazz Age into the Great Depression. Recommended for those interested in films from this time period.