It’s Love I’m After (1937)
It’s Love I’m After sounds like it would be more interesting than it turns out to be. There's nothing wrong with the leads or the supporting actors—Eric Blore is almost the fourth lead—but it never achieves takeoff velocity. Whether because of the studio—Warner Bros. instead of Paramount, the director—Archie Mayo instead of Ernest Lubitsch, the year it was made—1937 instead of 1933, or the high society setting, it is a curiosity and not a classic.
Basil Underwood (Leslie Howard) and Janet Arden (Bette Davis) are two stars of the The-a-tuh who are (we’re told) madly in love but can’t stand each other for longer than it takes to play a scene before the claws come out and they fight like two cats in a sack. Marcia West (Olivia de Havilland) is a besotted fan of Underwood, engaged to Henry Grant Jr. (Patric Knowles), and Digges, no first name (Eric Blore), is Underwood’s dresser and Man Friday. To show Marcia that Underwood is unworthy of her infatuation, Grant inveigles him to turn up at the West family estate and play the cad. He agrees, despite having promised Arden that they will be married that very night. Naturally, nothing goes according to plan.
At the West estate, keyholes are peeped through, doors are slammed, signals get crossed, and people turn up when they are least expected by the characters if not the audience. It’s funny enough but it isn’t My Man Godfrey. Still, with Howard, Davis, Blore, and the impossibly young Olivia de Havilland doing their best, 90 minutes pass pleasantly enough. Also in the cast are Spring Byington as de Havilland’s aunt, George Barbier as her father, and Bonita Granville as an annoying girl who might be believable as a nine-year-old but looks like the 14-year old she was.
You can watch It’s Love I’m After on a Warner Archive Collection DVD. TCM screens it from time to time and there are less legitimate sources for those who care to look for them.
