Overrated

hyped garbage

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A far-fetched set-up is in order for this romantic comedy similar to "The Shop Around the Corner", about two people who meet, at first can't stand each other, and eventually discover that they are connected in a rather unique way. He's a night security guard who needs a place to sleep during the day (apparently working seven days a week) so landlord George Sidney convinces broke tenant Ginger Rogers to share her apartment with him, she working by day while he sleeps, and him gone when she gets home. By chance, they meet each other (not knowing what their shared apartment roommate looks like) and slowly fall in love after a shaky start.A breezy pre-code comedy with some nice art direction for the apartment, witty dialog and a fabulously comic Laura Hope Crews as a clumsy drunken slob, this is memorable for a sequence where Rogers strips down to her lingerie, revealing a lot and hiding little. Rogers shines in scenes where she's promoting the refrigerators she's trying to sell, and sarcastically dealing with the eccentrics around her. Foster, better known as one of Claudette Colbert's husbands and Loretta Young's brother-in-law, is a light-hearted romantic lead who holds his own against the rising star Rogers who was about to shoot to the top of the box office as the dancing partner of Fred Astaire. In spite of the illogical premise, the film is quite enjoyable, much so that RKO remade it only three years later as the weaker "Living on Love". Crews's character, obviously a wealthy alcoholic out to make Foster her paid lover, played a similar character in the Bob Hope comedy "Thanks for the Memory", and her character bears more than a passing resemblance to the more sophisticated character that Patricia Neal played in "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

If you've read a couple comments, you know the story. At least the obvious parts. Man and woman sharing apartment on different schedule. Hate and love, with love winning. But there's a story about stories that matters more. I'm attuned to these triple narrative devices. Its a particularly complex sort of triple symmetry fold that I first noticed in "2001." Its particularly Jewish in formation, going back 740 years that I know.Here are the three: We have the kindly Jew who is a benevolent "arranger." He shuffles lives spatially. At the end, when things turn out well, he and his wife turn to each other and remark on how well his arranging has worked. Its the last thing we see.We have the guy. He's an artist. That should be enough said, but his devotion to his particular story is underscored by a rich drunk matron who wants to support him. For reasons assignable only to his controlling his own story, he turns her down.We have the girl, Ginger. Now her storytelling role is written as a stretch. She gets a job as a telemarketer where she has to convincingly read a script. It happens to be one associated with domestic life (refrigerators) which is plainly absent in the apartment where the thing is staged.The stories are all about sex and love. Its honest, lovely precode sex.The three stories clash in spots (some writing is involved) but braid to our satisfaction at the end. I believe that this triple braid was reused many times. This is the earliest I know, but I am sure readers can help me find earlier ones in film.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Delightfully fun romantic comedy about Jack, behind on his rent, Mary, behind on her rent, and the well-meaning landlord who comes up with an idea for a rather novel arrangement for the two - to share Jack's attic apartment. Mary has a job selling ice boxes, Jack works the night shift, so Mary gets the apartment from 8 P.M. to 8 A.M. and Jack from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. - and the two of them hate each other instantly and pull mean tricks on each other (stuff like putting his suit in the shower and cutting her bed so it collapses), though have never actually met. But wait! They do meet each other one day in front of a local delicatessen, and like each other, but have no idea they are actually living in the same apartment.Sounds like a plot we've all heard before - but this film was really, really cute and fun to watch. Ginger Rogers is gorgeous and funny as Mary, Norman Foster gives a steady, likable performance as Jack, and Laura Hope Crews really steals the scenes she is in playing a rich, drunken old dame who wants to "help" handsome Jack's career (he also happens to be a struggling artist) - she is hilarious. Okay - here's a few observations: how come Mary and Jack have never, ever seen each other before even though they have been living in the same brownstone on separate floors for at least long enough to both be overdue on the rent (you would think they would have at least passed each other on the stairs or out at the curb or maybe on the weekend a few times), and how about that company picnic where everyone has left except our two stars and ALL the garbage and trash from the picnicking is just left behind on the tables! Ah well - all in all, I found this to be a very enjoyable, funny, well done film.

There's a feeling of deja vu to the plot of RAFTER ROMANCE about two people who aren't aware of each other's identity until they fall in love, but in 1933 it must have seemed quite an original idea.At any rate, it gives GINGER ROGERS and NORMAN FOSTER a nice chance to show what they could do with light comedy and tender romance. They play two roommates who work different shifts but who eventually meet and fall in love. (Shades of YOU'VE GOT MAIL and other such stories). And oddly enough, ROBERT BENCHLEY would be making a play for Ginger as a lecherous wolf, just as he would some ten years later in THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR when he suggested she slip into something more comfortable.After a series of pranks and misunderstandings, Foster and Rogers find each other at the company picnic and promptly fall in love.Watch for LAURA HOPE CREWS (Aunt Pittypat of GWTW) as a woman who wants to "keep" Norman Foster--and GUINN WILLIAMS as a brawny taxicab driver.Summing up: Good fun with an early look at Ginger.