No More Ladies (1935)

Robert Montgomery plays a rich guy without much character. Most of the time, he'd prefer to be chasing skirts. So, when his girlfriend (Joan Crawford) is bored, they decide to get married--even though Robert's track record with serious relationships is horrendous. A short time after the marriage, Robert decides to start chasing other women--leaving poor Joan to cry and bemoan her fate. Considering he never pretended to be anything else other than a shallow ladies man, it seemed odd that she was so saddened by his predictable behavior.So far in the film, I was not impressed. The characters either seemed selfish and unlikable (Montgomery) or hopelessly stupid (Crawford). For comic relief, Charlie Ruggles did a bad drunk characterization that was supposed to be cute but frankly just annoyed me. So considering that I kept watching the film is a bit of a surprise.Fortunately, the film did get much better. Instead of whining at length, Joan came up with a clever plan to try to win back her husband's love and attention. While this was much more watchable, I kept thinking to myself "why would she want him back?!", but despite this it at least kept my interest.The bottom line is that I had a hard time caring about the character (especially since rich folks who make themselves miserable are hard to relate to or worry about). Because of this, the film definitely falls into the "time passer" category and not much more. Fans of the actors may want to tune it, but others probably can just skip this one. There are just better films out there from this time period--ones that will engage you.

One of many such comedies of the 1930s, No More Ladies focuses on the dilemma of a rich single woman (Joan Crawford) attracted to an energetic magnetic playboy (Robert Montgomery) who seems to exist without a shred of morality or self-control. What makes this film different from the typical mistaken lover comedy is the directness with which the Crawford character approaches her problems. The best part of the film, however, is Frannie, Crawford's grandmother who combines the best of Eve Arden with the best of Thelma Ritter. Also notable is Charlie Ruggles as a drunken friend of the playboy. The film's style is also worthy of attention. Reminiscent of surrealism and art nouveau the luxury sets of these characters' existence provide visual pleasure in themselves, if only in their extravagant elegance. Robert Montgomery fans will see him in his best boyish self-gratification mode, while fans of Crawford may find her a bit flat.

For sporadic moments of amusement "No More Ladies" is perfectly satisfactory. It has the MGM lusciousness and gleam that the other studios envied. Note the great looking costumes on Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, and Gail Patrick wear. The sophistication is showed by the ho-ho-ho jokes that are dropped by the likes of Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Franchot Tone, and Edna Mae Oliver. This is the type of film that has the hero with a name like "Sherry". People go to night clubs, and to fancy restaurants, and take drives in Central Park at night (it is, after all, the 1930s).The film is a bore - it occasionally amuses because of the cast, but the dialog is brittle for the sake of brittle. It is Noel Coward's world but not the real wit he brought - Coward's best plays show a streak of harshness and mutual malevolence mixed with affection in his couples like Amanda and Elyot in "Private Lives". They also tend to be smarter than the characters here.Also the characters are not all that amusing nowadays. Montgomery's cousin is Charlie Ruggles, who is constantly drunk. Ruggles is a favorite comedian to me, but here he was dull. Reginald Denny is around as a British version of Ralph Bellamy - an available alter-suitor to Montgomery for Crawford, and while Denny is elegant (in a skittish sort of way) he is not at all as amusing as Ralph Bellamy was in "His Girl Friday" or The Awful Truth".After watching this film I stopped to consider the three leads. Montgomery was typecast for most of the 1930s (except for an occasional film like "The Big House") as a happy, amoral socialite. Nobody really played the upper-crust cad as well as he did, but he got bored by it, and fought for meatier parts - and after his brilliant Danny in "Night Must Fall" he got them. Crawford reveled in parts like the hard-working lower class girl fighting her way to happiness, but she did many "socialite" parts as well. Along came "The Women", and she played a villainous social climber. After that came the really hard-boiled darker parts of the 1940s and 1950s like "Mildred Pierce" and "A Woman's Face" and "Flamingo Road". Tone, in 1935, would start having roles like Bryam in "Mutiny On The Bounty" - like Montgomery he would play his wealthy cads, but he would be able to step into nastier, meatier roles like "The Phantom Lady" and "The Man On The Eiffel Tower". When one talks to their fans about the great work of these three actors, it is the films where they played characters with demons after them that are recalled. Few really recall a piece of meaningless cotton candy like "No More Ladies" regarding any of them.

In the past 24 hours, I watched two 1930s comedies -- MERRILY WE LIVE and NO MORE LADIES.IDMB users seemed to like MWL far more than I did. Many of the actors brought little to their roles in that film, and there's not a snappy bit of dialogue in the whole picture.NML, on the other hand, is very witty, very well-acted, and quite entertaining. Yes, it might have been even better with someone other than Joan Crawford in the female lead, but Robert Montgomery is very strong and this was the most enjoyable work I'd ever seen Edna May Oliver deliver.And I don't think, as one reviewer suggested, the Code impacted this movie very much -- in fact, it comes as being quite Pre-Code in nature. If you didn't know when it was made, one might easily guess it was pre-, not post-, code.In short, not a classic, but quite snappy and entertaining and well worth watching.