IT'S LOVE AGAIN (1936)

Raymond, a producer of London musicals, is ready to cancel his latest due to a lack of talent. Parading around his apartment in a hooded robe (!), he vents about entering a monastery and more or less ignores young Elaine Bradford (Jessie Matthews) who has come for an audition. Woolf, a musician who apparently lives with Raymond (!) plays a cute little song Elaine has brought called "It's Love Again" which manages to rhyme "chop suey" with "fooey" and "screwy," and "heifer" with "zephyr." She has a nice voice and does some interesting high-kick dancing, but Raymond naps through her performance, waking up only when his former star Francine arrives; she left for Hollywood but is back and Raymond agrees to put her in a show. (When a frustrated Elaine asks what Francine has that she hasn't, Woolf replies "Hardening of the arteries.") On her way out, Elaine meets gossip columnist Peter Carlton (Robert Young); they dance for a moment before she goes on her way. Peter and his sidekick Freddie (they also are roommates), tired of scraping the streets for tidbits, decide to create a new celeb, the mysterious Mrs. Smythe-Smythe, and make up reports about her for the paper. London goes crazy for her even though she lives in India and has never been seen in town, and Elaine gets a "brainwave": she decides to pose as Smythe-Smythe, goes to a nightclub, and grabs everyone's attention by dancing with a gigolo friend of hers. Her appearance is a hit, and soon she is in cahoots with Peter and Freddie to play their fictional star for real. Things go swimmingly for a while until Montague, a rival reporter catches on and plans to expose their charade.

Jessie Matthews was a big stage and screen star in pre-war England, though she never really caught on in the States. If American film buffs know her, it's probably for her lead role in 1935's FIRST A GIRL which was based on the same source material used years later for VICTOR/VICTORIA. She reminds me at various times of Ruby Keeler, Loretta Young, Ginger Rogers, and, when she high-kicks, Charlotte Greenwood. I find her inoffensive but not terribly exciting—she can act better than Keeler but she is much less lively than Rogers. But this movie is cute, and I mean that in a good way. Matthews, like her character, soldiers on through all the sticky situations she gets into and you can't help rooting for her. The chemistry between Matthews and Robert Young (both pictured above) is pretty flat, but oddly she sparks with Warren Jenkins as the possibly gay Woolf and with Sonnie Hale as Freddie (understandable as Hale was her real-life husband). Shakespearean actor Ernest Milton is great fun as the flamboyant director Raymond. The production numbers aren't as glossy as the ones you'd find in a Hollywood musical, but they work just fine. Perhaps not a classic but one you can't help but like. [TCM]