Repent at Leisure

This is a variation on the runaway bride plot. Wendy Barrie, generally not a favorite of mine, is likable as said lady. She runs out on her would-be groom as the movie is opening. Her goal is to meet a man not interested in her department store-owner father's money. Enter Kent Taylor.

Taylor is rather wooden. But his character is meant to be stolid, though honorable. They make a cute couple, through ups and downs.

The supporting cast is uniformly good. And the plot doesn't seem forced. It has plenty of variations on the standard theme and is a nice way to pass some time.

At only 66 minutes, we knew this wasn't going to be a major work from RKO. Wendy Barrie stars as "Emily", about to be married to the Prince of something or other. But she's not happy, and laments that she doesn't really want to marry him anyway. She bumps into "Richard" (Kent Taylor), and they hit it off. Just one problem: Richard works in her own father's store ! Wendy Barrie starred in a bunch of the "Falcon" films as well as the "Saint" films. Kent Taylor did okay in hollywood, but looks like he never made the bigtime. and of course, Charles Lane is "Morgan", the manager; Lane played a HUGE number of bit parts over his LONG career, usually serious, somber roles, (bill collectors) who had to rain on someone's parade. So when the story has them telling lie after lie to Morgan to save their jobs, they get in deeper and deeper. It's all pretty silly. If you're old enough to know Three's Company, this is where Mr. Roper walks in and it all blows up! as usual, they could have avoided the whole thing if they had just told the truth. We rush through the whole story... it's okay, as a B movie. all over and done with pretty quickly. hard to buy into it all, since it's all built on un-necessary lies and mis-understandings. we were way into the hollywood film code by now, but a smidge prior to entering WWII. shows on Turner Classics. meh.

"Repent at Leisure" (1941) is about as logical a title for this little 66-minute B-grade film as the sequence of events depicted in it flow from plausible logic. However, that's not to say the film isn't enjoyable, because it actually is, up to a point. And that point is the drawn-out final scene, which to me was as much without merit as it was without defensible premise. It just isn't good when the final scene leaves one heading for the exit in a disagreeable state of mind.

But the movie is light and airy and pretty much a feel-good flick in general, with the department store owner (George Barbier) and his daughter (Wendy Barrie) involved in a series of comical concealed and mistaken identity concerns. How things came to this compounding familial difficulty requires the viewer to take a few leaps of faith along the way, which is acceptable because there is some fun to be had here. Kent Taylor as the leading man chosen by Wendy really has nothing going for him in the way of charisma, and it is hard to see why we should find him appealing, let alone Wendy. It is obvious this film was very cheaply done but does pass along some enjoyable moments, but please... just don't expect too much from it.

Thanks largely to the insouciant script by Jerome Cady, the well-done comic direction by Frank Woodruff (who'd scored at the same studio a year before with the similarly themed "Cross-Country Romance") and the charm of Wendy Barrie in the female lead, this is a better-than-average "B" with some genuinely imaginative moments. It's basically an "It Happened One Night" knockoff, but with variations that give it a unique appeal. Kent Taylor's queeny performance as the young store clerk obsessed with "success" books (including those Harold Lloyd/Clark Kent glasses!) is a bit odd but has its own charm; George Barbier is for once subtle and genuinely moving as Barrie's father (a department-store owner who helps his daughter escape a mismatched marriage to a stuck-up fortune-hunting prince, well played by Rafael Storm), the plot has some quite unexpected twists (courtesy of writers who obviously didn't take this assignment overly seriously), and only the racist so-called "comedy" of Fred "Snowflake" Toones mars it.

Though this is hardly original, I think that maybe the fact that there's a consistent grade of B-listers taking part just about gets it over the finish line in one piece. With "Emily" (Wendy Barrie) jilting "Prince Paul" (Rafael Storm) at the altar - with the full support of her doting and wealthy father "Baldwin" (George Barbier), she bumps into the charming "Hughes" (Kent Taylor) on the top of a bus - in full wedding regalia - and the ensuing whirlwind romance results in marriage. She tells her father only to discover that he is one of his employees. Much to the chagrin of his colleagues, "Hughes" suddenly starts to move up through the department store in which he works, but he is confident it's all based on merit. He has no idea that he's the boss's son-in-law! That state of affairs cannot continue and in fit of pique, the man leaves job and marriage to work for a competitor. The battles lines are drawn as the two stores battle to out-sale each other. It's all about brollies in the end as the rather predicable outcome hoves into view. The cast put a little entertaining effort into their characters and the writing does enough to keep this moving along making an amiable watch for an hour.