JohnHowardReid The only thing I can really say in praise of this very disappointing waste of effort, money and time, is that I really enjoyed the delightfully inappropriate Viennese music score directed and conducted by Louis Silvers. The script by Melville Baker (who later wrote the excellent "Above Suspicion") can only be described as a screaming bore. Admittedly, Baker probably didn't have much to start with in Ladislaus Bus-Fekete's 1930 Hungarian stage play which was translated by Victor Katona and Guy Bolton (of all people!) and which was published by Dutton of New York in 1937 - that is AFTER the movie was released. Presumably, Dutton anticipated that the movie would be a really big hit. It was certainly packed with star power: Janet Gaynor, Loretta Young, Constance Bennett, Simone Simon, Don Ameche, Paul Lukas, Tyrone Power... Alas, Only Alan Mowbray really delivers (and perhaps Simone Simon). The director, Edward H. Griffith, was not exactly a director of renown. And even if he was, almost everyone else assigned to this movie seems to be working at half steam, including my favorite photographer, Hal Mohr.

calvinnme ... because you just might get it! It's rather predictable, yet interesting. Three women combine finances so they can rent a spacious apartment in a wealthy part of Budapest and use that apartment as a jumping off point so that they all can get their individual wishes. Constance Bennett plays Yoli, a woman with sophisticated tastes and ways, but no money. Loretta Young plays Susie Schmidt, a girl in the chorus of a local show, and Janet Gaynor plays Baroness Martha, a woman of noble blood whose family lost everything in WWI, so now she has to live off selling neckties on the street along with a hodgepodge of odd jobs.One of the first thing the women do is practice an old superstition. They sit down in whatever room of the apartment they happen to be in, count the corners of the room, and then say their wish aloud. Yoli asks for a rich husband who will buy her jewels and furs, Susie asks to be independent of men with a shop of her own. You can detect a trace of bitterness in her voice as she says this, as though she has been burned by romance before and often. Finally, in the bathroom, Martha says she is going to ask for the impossible - a good home, a husband to take care of, and children.Their first visitor is John Barta, a wealthy man whose work takes him all over the world, but for now he is on vacation in Budapest and keeping company with the seemingly aloof Yoli. Along with Barta is Karl Lanyi (Tyrone Power). One smile from him and it's time for family values for Susie. Her Independence Day spirit evaporates before your eyes. As for Martha, she gets a job to replace all of her part time jobs by being the assistant to an illusionist, Alan Mowbrey as the very amusing Paul Sandor who can't tell when he is performing and when he is having an actual conversation.By my last paragraph do you think you can tell how this will turn out? I will tell you now you do not! Watch and find out. I will tell you that every girl get's their spoken wish, but not the desires of their heart. Only Martha winds up truly happy. I've always said if you are going to watch the films of 1936 you better be prepared to deal with the values of 1936, so the lesson here seems to be that the only honorable ambition of any girl is for a traditional family. Just wanting a rich man for what he can give you or a career so you don't have to deal with a man in the first place is just not honorable. Not my words or beliefs, but ideas coming from a script written almost 80 years ago that Fox revamped from various angles from time to time over the next three decades.An interesting aside - Fox's past, present, and future are all here. Loretta Young was brought over from Zanuck's 20th Century films to do this, and she wound up a big star. Don Ameche is fifth billed, but will wind up being one of Fox's biggest stars with that charm that was just so unique to him. Tyrone Power? He's seventh billed and one of the few assets left over from the original Fox Films, but that disarming smile, even playing a pure heel with only a few lines, got so much fan mail that he quickly went up the ladder. As for Janet Gaynor, she had been making money for Fox for over a decade and has probably the best role here, but her time at Fox, and in film for that matter, is just about over.I'd highly recommend this if you ever get the time. The ghostliest fact to me - these people don't even realize that their wishes may be temporary because another war is about to change everything in just three years time.

bkoganbing Although no one on this film got any closer to Budapest than the new 20th Century Fox studio's back lot, Ladies In Love is a nice romantic film about three women who agree to split the costs of an apartment in a swank Budapest neighborhood. The better for them to catch good husbands and the three go about to work.Janet Gaynor works as a lab assistant to Dr. Don Ameche who basically treats her like a doormat. She must like the idea because she then goes to work for egotistical magician Alan Mowbray as his assistant and general factotum. Mowbray is in a part that later on Clifton Webb would have specialized in.Loretta Young thinks she's found true love in Tyrone Power. But Power is a heel in this one and he's some kind of minor nobility. He trades up for Virginia Field who not only has title, but money. This was the role that made Darryl Zanuck decide that Power would be the franchise player of his new 20th Century Fox studio. Power would play a hero/heel in many of his films, but here he's a straight heel. Seventh billed in the cast list he got a lot of fan mail from this film that helped Zanuck in his evaluation.Constance Bennett is the oldest and most experienced of the three. She's got a thing going with another titled gent Paul Lukas. But one fine day a sly little minx from the country shows up in Simone Simon. She's supposed to be a teenager, but this girl is most mature in her wiles. She's got Lukas panting and wanting more.In the end one girl gets what she wants, the other two have to settle as they leave their apartment in the ritzy part of Budapest. A close call to tragedy also happens to one.Ladies In Love is a nice romantic film in which a whole cast gave a nice ensemble effort. Some futures were made because of this film.

blanche-2 This is an interesting 1936 film starring Constance Bennett, Janet Gaynor, Loretta Young, Paul Lukas, Don Ameche, and Tyrone Power. Set in Budapest, it concerns three young women who get an apartment together. All wish for love and happiness but soon learn that the course of true love never does run smooth.And neither does the course of stardom, as the featured stars in this film would soon be replaced by a younger crowd. The Bennett-Lukas affair and Gaynor's adventures with Don Ameche and her magician boss take center stage, while Loretta Young's romance with Tyrone Power gets short shrift. The film provides an excellent showcase for Don Ameche, Power, and Young, all of whom would take over the star roster at Fox within the next two years. Power is flawlessly gorgeous and is delightful with Young. This obviously was not lost on 20th Century Fox as the studio would star the two in four films over the next three years. Bennett and Gaynor were two very early stars, and by 1941, Bennett was doing second leads; Gaynor (who was dating Power) had her last steady work in films in 1938."Ladies in Love" has a great feel to it with its Budapest background, European-based stories being so popular in the '30s, and there are some wonderful performances. Bennett is beautiful and glamorous as the one who's been around the block and Gaynor petite and lively as she carries on a love/hate relationship with Ameche.Simone Simon has a role as a kittenish young woman who arrives at Lukas' apartment as a cousin by marriage. She looks like she's about 16, but in reality, the actress was 25. However, she is playing someone who is in school, and I found her relationship with Lukas a little disconcerting. She was probably supposed to be 18.All in all, an entertaining film signaling a changing of the guard at Fox.