It’s Love I’m After **** (1937, Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles) – Classic Movie Review 6904

Director Archie Mayo’s frothy 1937 Warner Bros screwball comedy stars the exciting, formidable vintage team of Bette Davis, Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland, and is based on the original story Gentlemen after Midnight by Maurice Hanline.

A matinée idol gentleman unfortunately called Basil Underwood (Howard) and his tempestuous fiancée Joyce Arden (Davis) are stage stars always at loggerheads, but finally decide to get married on the twelfth attempt, and then passionate young society woman Marcia West (de Havilland) invites him home.

Basil decides to do a favour for a stranger, Henry Grant (Patric Knowles), whose fiancée Marcia West (de Havilland) has fallen in love with him. Basil plans to make Marcia fall out of love with him by playing the cad, but that’s when he finds out that the woman is Marcia, a lovestruck fan who professed her love to him earlier.

This mostly elegant and very funny comedy is rousingly played by the notable cast (particularly Eric Blore as the butler Digges), though Casey Robinson’s generally amusing screenplay is perhaps not always quite up to their peerless talents.

However, Davis and Howard are strong sparring partners, and there are some great moments of real wit and hilarity. Generally, It’s Love I’m After is quite the rare, little known treat. Howard is in his element using his theatre background when his character quotes lines from Macbeth, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, and Romeo and Juliet.

Also in the cast are Patric Knowles, George Barbier, Spring Byington, Bonita Granville, Veda Ann Borg, E E Clive, Valerie Bergere, Georgia Caine, Sarah Edwards, Grace Field, Harvey Clarke, Thomas Pogue, Ed Mortimer, Lionel Belmore, Jack Mower, Irving Bacon and Paul Irving.

It’s Love I’m After is directed by Archie Mayo, runs 90 minutes, is made by First National, is released by Warner Bros, is written by Casey Robinson, is shot in black and white by James Van Trees, is produced by Hal B Wallis and Harry Joe Brown, is scored by Heinz Roemheld and Leo F Forbstein, and is designed by Carl Jules Weyl. Davis got cinematographer James Van Trees replaced by her trusted cameraman Tony Gaudio but Van Trees received sole screen credit.

It is Howard and Davis’s third pairing, after Of Human Bondage (1934) and The Petrified Forest (1936).

Initial choice Gertrude Lawrence having been rejected, the film had no leading lady when it began production until Wallis decided the screwball comedy would be a good change of pace for Davis. But she rejected the role of Joyce, thinking the Marcia role was better, and resenting Howard’s top billing. However, she caved in, provided Wallis allowed her some time for rest and relaxation between films, but then he made her report to work on 28 March 1937 anyway.

It is the basis of a stage musical comedy called Madly in Love.

Olivia de Havilland celebrated her 100th birthday on 1 July 2016.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6904

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