It's the depression and everyone is hard up except the very wealthy. (Plus ca change...) Ginger Rogers is a working girl forced to share an attic or loft with Norman Foster, an artist who refuses to take any money from the society matron (Laura Hope Crews) who pursues him. George Sidney is Mr. Eckbaum, the slightly frantic landlord who tries to keep everything going. He arranges it so that Rogers, who is a telephone salesgirl by day, and Foster, who has a job as a night watchman, never meet. Trying to keep the place "respectable," you know.
Well, the two roomies who don't know each other take a long time to meet. In the meantime, leaving nasty notes for one another and playing painful pranks, each comes to loathe the other.
But -- guess what! -- they meet accidentally outside their attic, assume false identities for different reasons, and fall for each other. This plot, I'm sure, goes back farther than "You've Got Mail" or "The Shop Around the Corner." I honestly don't know how far back in the mists of ancient history it goes. When did they invent rentals? It's a bit slow at first. George Sidney is funny, though, as the wisecracking Jewish landlord. His son Julius brings him a bowl of noodle soup for the famished Rogers but spills some on the carpet. "Ahh, next time I ask you for TWO bowls of zoop -- one for the lady and one for the carpet." If you don't think that's funny, I ought to warn you that that's about as good as it gets.
Robert Benchley is in it too, as the amorous boss of Rogers at the Icy Air Refrigerator Company, but his particularly Ivy League brand of humor may be an acquired taste. Except for "Foreign Correspondent," come to think of it, where his non sequiturs were superb. Guinn (Big Boy) Williams also appears in the small role of a comic taxi driver.
Foster isn't much of an actor but Ginger Rogers is delightfully piquant as a tough but vulnerable proletarian. She has a wonderful figure, which she gets to display, but her movements are stiff and no one could have predicted that within the next few years she would be a partner in the most famous dancing team in the world.
Everything about the movie is smooth and logical and never rises above the level of "nice" -- slightly amusing, slightly warm, and with a happy ending.
Well, the two roomies who don't know each other take a long time to meet. In the meantime, leaving nasty notes for one another and playing painful pranks, each comes to loathe the other.
But -- guess what! -- they meet accidentally outside their attic, assume false identities for different reasons, and fall for each other. This plot, I'm sure, goes back farther than "You've Got Mail" or "The Shop Around the Corner." I honestly don't know how far back in the mists of ancient history it goes. When did they invent rentals? It's a bit slow at first. George Sidney is funny, though, as the wisecracking Jewish landlord. His son Julius brings him a bowl of noodle soup for the famished Rogers but spills some on the carpet. "Ahh, next time I ask you for TWO bowls of zoop -- one for the lady and one for the carpet." If you don't think that's funny, I ought to warn you that that's about as good as it gets.
Robert Benchley is in it too, as the amorous boss of Rogers at the Icy Air Refrigerator Company, but his particularly Ivy League brand of humor may be an acquired taste. Except for "Foreign Correspondent," come to think of it, where his non sequiturs were superb. Guinn (Big Boy) Williams also appears in the small role of a comic taxi driver.
Foster isn't much of an actor but Ginger Rogers is delightfully piquant as a tough but vulnerable proletarian. She has a wonderful figure, which she gets to display, but her movements are stiff and no one could have predicted that within the next few years she would be a partner in the most famous dancing team in the world.
Everything about the movie is smooth and logical and never rises above the level of "nice" -- slightly amusing, slightly warm, and with a happy ending.