Ever Since Eve * (1937, Marion Davies, Robert Montgomery, Frank McHugh, Patsy Kelly, Allen Jenkins) – Classic Movie Review 10,140

In 1937, the 40-year-old Marion Davies filmed her last movie, director Lloyd Bacon’s screwball romantic comedy Ever Since Eve, in which she plays an attractive young woman fed up having to quit job after job to avoid lecherous bosses’ advances. She finds she is too attractive for a job at an employment agency, so she hides her blond curls under a dark wig, and wears glasses and a drab dress.

Marion Davies’s swansong in the movies is as Marge Winton, a pretty stenographer who makes herself look plain to repel her writer employer Freddy Matthews (Robert Montgomery)’s advances, so he can complete his book on time, with all sorts of daffy results.

The possibilities for fun are here but a witless script gives even skilled stars Davies and Montgomery and this great Warner Bros stock-company support cast a tough time raising any laughs or even smiles.

There is a trio of pretty feeble songs thrown in for bad measure: ‘Ever Since Eve’, ‘Little Star of the Night’, and ‘I Know Now’.

Also in the cast are Frank McHugh, Patsy Kelly, Allen Jenkins, Louise Fazenda, Barton MacLane, Mary Treen, Marcia Ralston, Carol Hughes, Frederick Clarke, Charles Foy, Arthur Hoyt, Spencer Charters, Charles Trowbridge, Frank Faylen, Jack Mower, Harry Hayden, Frank Shannon, Etta McDaniel, Frank Orth, Minerva Urecal and Frank Otto.

Marion Davies made two films with Clark Gable: Polly of the Circus (1932) and Cain and Mabel (1936).

Davies made her screen debut in 1916, modelling gowns by Lady Duff-Gordon in a fashion newsreel. In 1917 she appeared in her first feature film, Runaway Romany (now a lost film). Davies wrote the screenplay and it was directed by her brother-in-law, producer George W Lederer. In 1918, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst formed Cosmopolitan Pictures and got Davies to sign a $500-per-week exclusive contract with his studio. The 21-year-old Davies and 58-year-old Hearst began a sexual relationship, and he used his newspaper empire and Hearst Metrotone Newsreels to promote Davies on a vast scale. They stayed partners till his death in 1951.

The cast are Marion Davies as Marge Winton, Robert Montgomery as Freddie Matthews, Frank McHugh as Mike McGillicuddy, pen name Mabel DeCraven, Patsy Kelly as Sadie Day, Allen Jenkins as Jake Edgall, Louise Fazenda as Abigail Belldon, Barton MacLane as Al McCoy, Marcia Ralston as Camille Lansing, Fredrick R Clark as Alonzo, Arthur Hoyt as Mr Cuddleton, Florence Gill as Annie the Cleaning Lady, Bess Flowers as Dance Extra, Mary Treen as Employment Clerk, Carol Hughes, Frederick Clarke, Charles Foy, Spencer Charters, Charles Trowbridge, Frank Faylen, Jack Mower, Harry Hayden, Frank Shannon, Etta McDaniel, Frank Orth, Minerva Urecal and Frank Otto.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,140

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