Ladies’ Man ** (1931, William Powell, Kay Francis, Carole Lombard) – Classic Movie Review 9876

Director Lothar Mendes’s 1931 film Ladies’ Man is a well-crafted romantic melodrama, based on a novel by Rupert Hughes, with a screenplay by Herman J Mankiewicz.

It stars William Powell as Jamie Darricott, a Machiavellian socialite gold-digger, playing wealthy mother Mrs Fendley (Olive Tell) off against her daughter Rachel (Carole Lombard), who wants to marry him, while trying to find true love and happiness with his new girlfriend Norma Page (Kay Francis).

The unpleasant story and sluggish direction are buoyed up by star Powell, who injects his role with just the right dose of caddish nastiness, and the always highly watchable Lombard, as well as Kay Francis.

Ladies’ Man reunites Powell and Lombard immediately after Man of the World (1931).

Also in the cast are Gilbert Emery, Olive Tell, Martin Burton, John Holland, Frank Atkinson, Maude Turner Gordon, Jacqueline Fontaine, Joe Gray, Gloria Jean, Karyn Kupcinet, Sylvia Lewis, Kenneth MacDonald, Ann McCrea, Del Moore, Faye Michael Nuell, Sheila Rogers, Joan Staley, Kay Tapscott, Patty Thomas, Gloria Tracy, Doodles Weaver, Lee Phelps, and Lothar Mendes (Man in Hotel Lobby).

Ladies’ Man is directed by Lothar Mendes, runs 70 minutes, is made and released by Paramount Pictures, is written by Herman J Mankiewicz, based on a novel by Rupert Hughes, is shot in black and white by Victor Milner, and scored by Karl Hajos, Herman Hand and John Leipold.

Lombard and Powell hit it off while filming Man of the World (1931), and they soon got married that same year, on 6 June 1931 but the marriage did not work out (‘We were just two completely incompatible people’) and they divorced on 16 August 1933, though they remained friendly and memorably starred together again in My Man Godfrey (1936).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9876

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