LOVE BEFORE BREAKFAST

(director: Walter Lang; screenwriter: based on the novel Spinster Dinner by Faith Baldwin/Herbert Fields/Gertrude Purcell; cinematographer: Ted Tetzlaff; editor: Maurice E. Wright; music: Franz Waxman; cast: Carole Lombard (Kay Colby), Preston Foster (Scott Miller), Cesar Romero (Bill Wadsworth), Janet Beecher (Mrs. Colby), Betty Lawford (Countess Campanella), Forrester Harvey (Chief Steward), Douglas Blackley (College Boy), Joyce Compton (Mary Lee); Runtime: 70; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Edmund Grainger; Universal; 1936)
“It’s worth seeing only because Lombard is worth seeing.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Walter Lang(“Cheaper by the Dozen”/”Sitting Pretty”/”Coney Island”) directs this genial fluff romantic comedy. The flimsy plot has the Wall Street tycoon Cesar Romero and his employee Preston Foster as suitors of NYC socialite Carole Lombard. The richer man tries to win the heart of the wealthy and attractive Lombard by treating her with riches and gaining her scheming mom’s (Janet Beecher) support. Foster plays even dirtier by buying an oil company and reassigning his rival to manage things in the Japan branch

It’s worth seeing only because Lombard is worth seeing. Its morality lesson is that no woman likes being bullied into marriage, even by the most eligible bachelor and such bullying will most likely bring on the reverse reaction desired.

It’s based on the novel Spinster Dinner by Faith Baldwin. Writers Herbert Fields and Gertrude Purcell keep it bearable but uninteresting.

REVIEWED ON 5/20/2015 GRADE: B-