6/10
Basil Rathbone in his leading-man phase...
11 December 2015
...and he's quite dashing, a tall charmer of exquisite phrasing and mellifluous voice. Here he's a military man who, for complicated plot reasons, receives a love letter from a woman he never met. That's Dorothy MacKail, now utterly forgotten, but a quite popular and capable Follies beauty who starred in a number of early talkies. She's an heiress who has had to invent a fiancé so her younger sister can wed, and her total fabrication of a love letter has been delivered to Rathbone. It's a slightly stiff early-talkie drawing room comedy of scant surprise and pedestrian direction, by William A. Seiter, and has a not terribly interesting supporting cast; best is Emily Fitzroy, as a tippling aunt. But MacKail and Rathbone were always worth watching, and they do strike sparks as they spar and deceive one another. An OK hour and a half, and if it makes you hungry for more Dorothy MacKail, that's understandable.
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