Personal Property *** (1937, Jean Harlow, Robert Taylor, Reginald Owen, E E Clive) – Classic Movie Review 7197

Jean Harlow eclipses the rest of the cast (even though she was ailing and made only one more movie, Saratoga) in director W S Van Dyke II’s mild if amiable 1937 romantic comedy Personal Property, reworked from H M Harwood’s play, The Man in Possession, previously filmed in 1931 under that title.

Robert Taylor plays a dodgy but well-connected man-about-town Raymond Dabney, the English man in trouble who lands a job watching the property of American widow Crystal Wetherby (Harlow). Then he is sent to curb her extravagant spending over in the UK but by fade-out falls in love with her.

Taylor is bland and wooden, but E E Clive and Reginald Owen are excellent as Taylor’s dad Cosgrove Dabney and his brother Claude, whom Harlow is planning to wed for his (non-existent, it turns out) money. Taylor does not know Harlow is engaged to his brother. But it is Harlow’s film, and it is her bright star turn that makes it a memorable occasion.

There is not too much plot to spread around, certainly no surprises, just the anticipation of how long it will take for them to reach a happy ending, but this is still a genial sort of film.

Personal Property is rarely shown, but it is quite well done, especially considering it was filmed in 10 days, thanks to the director’s fast, one-take movie-making. How popular he must have been with his MGM studio bosses!

Also in the cast are Una O’Connor as Clara, Henrietta Crosman as Mrs Cosgrove Dabney, Cora Witherspoon as Mrs Burns, Marla Shelton as Catherine Burns, Forrester Harvey as Herbert Jenkins, Lionel Braham as Lord Carstairs Barnett Parker as Arthur ‘Trevy’ Trevelyan, Jimmy Aubrey, Leyland Hodgson, Tom Ricketts and Billy Bevan.

It proved to be Harlow’s last completed film. During the filming of Harlow’s last film Saratoga (1937), she was hospitalized with uremic poisoning and died from it on 7 June 1937, aged 26. Saratoga was finished with long angle shots using a double and released posthumously.

Owen played the same character of Claude Dabney in the 1931 film adaptation of Harwood’s play, The Man in Possession.

On a low $299,000 budget, it took $1,731,000 at the box office, and MGM earned a a profit of $872,000. Harlow was immensely popular.

Harwood’s play opened in London on 22 January 1930 and on Broadway on 1 November 1930.

Personal Property (also known as The Man in Possession) is directed by W S Van Dyke II, runs 84 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Hugh Mills and Ernest Vajda, based on H M Harwood’s play, The Man in Possession, is shot in black and white by William H Daniels, is produced by John W Considine Jr, is scored by Franz Waxman, and is designed by Cedric Gibbons and Henry McAlee.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7197

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