If You Could Only Cook (1935)

Honestly, I don't dislike every movie that I watch, although I seem to be specialising in fairly negative reviews of late, but a lot of them just don't bear thinking about.  For example yesterday I actually saw five (yes five) films which is a bit much even for me, but the early screwball film named above was the only one to leave me feeling happy.  It's a fairly obscure one but no less jolly for that.  What we have is the very dapper Herbert Marshall (the only leading man of the '30s with one leg -- he lost the other in the War -- not that you would ever know!) playing a very rich and very socially-connected engineer about to marry for convenience meeting the very poor Jean Arthur on a park bench.  Pretending to be as down and out as she -- this was the tail end of the Great Depression -- they decide to pose as a married couple to get a position as a butler and a cook.  That's the whole story, apart from how they end up in a household of crooks and how, of course, they end up together against all odds.  Being just into the Hays era of censorship, there is a ridiculous amount of business concerning the fact that their staff quarters has only one bed, but Marshall is the perfect gentleman if not quite the perfect butler.  And, oh yes, as it happens Arthur is an excellent cook.  Coming in at under seventy minutes, this is the perfect pick-me-up among a sea of dross.

I'm off to New York again soon for one of my bi-annual trips, so there are unlikely to be any new entries between now and my return later in the month.  See you then...