HONOR AMONG LOVERS was shot at Paramount's Astoria Studios in New York. This was a relatively primitive setup where low budget pictures were shot using the young talent so plentiful on the Broadway stage. The Marx Brothers first two films, THE COCONUTS and ANIMAL CRACKERS, were shot there, but I'm not sure there are any other Astoria efforts that are widely known today. In a few years the cast of HONOR AMONG LOVERS (Claudette Colbert, Frederic March, Ginger Rogers, Charles Ruggles) would have been an all star lineup, but in 1931 they were a collection of young actors (though Ruggles wasn't all that young) trying to get somewhere. HONOR AMONG LOVERS probably didn't help all that much.
Colbert is a super-efficient secretary whose boss (March) has the hots for her. Instead of the boss, she marries a weaselly stockbroker, leaving sexually harassing March to pine away for her while her husband gets into all kinds of trouble. Affairs end happily if not particularly plausibly.
Claudette plays a character who is pretty much perfect all the way through and never loses her temper no matter how badly the boss harasses her. March's character seems to learn his lesson somewhere along the way, remaining scrupulously faithful to his ideal love no matter how out of character that seems, and the actor is smoothly convincing both as a scoundrel and as a saint, not an easy accomplishment. Rogers and Ruggles have little to do but do it amusingly, Ginger playing a 'dumb blonde' (actually more of a dumb redhead) role for I believe the only time in her career. She's in the movie early, disappears through most of it, and pops up again near the end, the smallest role of her career. She would leave for Hollywood soon thereafter.
Directed by Dorothy Arzner, the only woman regularly working as a director in Hollywood at the time, HONOR AMONG LOVERS is a pretty bland picture, notable for historical reasons only.
Colbert is a super-efficient secretary whose boss (March) has the hots for her. Instead of the boss, she marries a weaselly stockbroker, leaving sexually harassing March to pine away for her while her husband gets into all kinds of trouble. Affairs end happily if not particularly plausibly.
Claudette plays a character who is pretty much perfect all the way through and never loses her temper no matter how badly the boss harasses her. March's character seems to learn his lesson somewhere along the way, remaining scrupulously faithful to his ideal love no matter how out of character that seems, and the actor is smoothly convincing both as a scoundrel and as a saint, not an easy accomplishment. Rogers and Ruggles have little to do but do it amusingly, Ginger playing a 'dumb blonde' (actually more of a dumb redhead) role for I believe the only time in her career. She's in the movie early, disappears through most of it, and pops up again near the end, the smallest role of her career. She would leave for Hollywood soon thereafter.
Directed by Dorothy Arzner, the only woman regularly working as a director in Hollywood at the time, HONOR AMONG LOVERS is a pretty bland picture, notable for historical reasons only.