User Reviews

Secretary Emily Borden (Virginia Gilmore) is in love with her boss, Henry Summers (James Ellison), but he is romancing society-babe Constance Powell (Janis Carter) and is too busy to notice. Co-worker Ralph (Dan Duryea) is interested in Emily but Emily has no interest in Ralph. Emily's grandmother (Alma Kruger) gives Emily the complicated plan she used to trap Grandpa and Emily, rather than saying "you gotta be kidding" goes along with it. First, she sends Hery a series of anonymous notes professing deep love for Henry, and signs them "The Pink Lady." The Pink Lady" asks Henry to meet her at the beach. Henry arrives and is startled to find Emily at the beach, but makes no connection between her and "The Pink Lady." But he takes note that Emily is something of a looker and takes her to dinner. Back in New York, Henry is told by an underworld character (part of Grannie's scheme" to stay away from "The Pink Lady. As far as Henry knows, he has never been around "The Pink Lady" to begin with but, to ensure that he will not encounter her, he decides to take an out-of-town business trip, and bring Emily along to attend to company-business affairs. Ralph has his eye on this situation and follows when Emily and Henry go out of town together, as Ralph is not buying the taking-care-of-the-office excuse. Alone with Emily for the first time, while they are attending to office-business, Henry realizes he is in love with her. But when Ralph breaks in, Henry gets mad and leaves. The repentant Henry tries to make up with Emily but she will not see him. So, he visits her home and, though she isn't there, he finds out that Emily is the mysterious "Pink Lady." He leaves a note for Emily saying he will be in the park at a specified time, and signs it "The Pink Lady."

There are some truly funny moments in this second string 20th Century Fox comedy that tries too hard to be hysterical and ends up somewhat aggravating. It's another case of young man and woman working together with the hidden feelings of the woman towards her playboy boss creating all sorts of tension, especially when the secretary (Virginia Gilmore) sends a secret mash note to the boss (James Ellison) arranging for them to meet at the beach to hopefully become romantically involved.

It's no wonder that the best secretaries in these old movies were older, wiser and more no-nonsense, because as good of a secretary as she is, Gilmore can't get her mind onto her work when it comes to her feelings for her boss, even though she is supposedly involved with another man (Dan Duryea) who is a bit of a possessive brute. Gilmore and her over-the-top grandmother (Alma Kruger) pretend to be at the beach by accident so Ellison won't be suspicious of Gilmore being the letter writer, and for some reason, they end up at a hotel to try and work where Duryea and the prim and proper hotel staff (lead by the hysterical Minerva Urecal) try to keep anything dirty from going on. Duryea then stalks them to Ellison's charming cottage in the country, creating more havoc, with Ellison pretending to be the handyman while off-screen, Gilmore yells in a funny accent to get the intrusive guest to go away to throw him off of their tracks.

Sometimes, these classic screwball comedies went too far in being really believable, even if the screwball comedy genre alone at its best is filled with ridiculous scenarios. Gilmore and Ellison try to make the outlandish situation amusing, but the script just gets in the way by insisting that any young man and woman can fall in love simply by spending a lot of time together. They have sparks, but that doesn't indicate love. It is Kruger who gets the bulk of the laughs with her outrageous southern accent, and in her brief scenes, Minerva Urecal hysterically funny as she makes all sorts of innuendos of Ellison and Gilmore being together simply as boss and secretary, which she doesn't obviously believe. The fact that she walks with a cane becomes funnier as she begins to sprint to the rooms where she is sure something unacceptable is happening. Dozens of films of this type seemed to flock the movie screens every year in the 1930's and 40's, so it isn't a surprise that many of them like this one fall under the radar and end up obscure or unreleased. It can provide a few laughs here and there, but even within just a few reels, I wanted so much more.