It's Love I'm After

Basil Underwood is a famous stage actor: vain, in love with himself, playing Shakespeare. His fiancée Joyce is an actor too and the two constantly quarrel and make up. A young admirer, Marcia, is obsessed with Basil and wants to leave her fiancé and marry him. Marcia's fiancé comes to Basil with a request: that he behave for a week like an unbearable man so that she cools off. Basil agrees. But whatever he does, she admires him more. Archie Mayo directs. Leslie Howard plays Basil, Bette Davis plays Joyce and Olivia de Havilland plays Marcia. It was made inside the American screwball wave and the tempo follows the rules of the genre: fast talk, constant misunderstanding and physical comedy. Bette Davis was arguing with the studio about her parts at the time and was not happy working in comedies like this; even so the performance does what the genre requires. The best passages are those in which Basil is deliberately appalling; the comedy comes from the character using his own vanity. The valet is one of the known instances of the English manservant type of the period, and the most laughed at lines belong to him. It is little known today but is remembered as one of the few productions to hold all three actors at once. Who it is for: viewers who like Hollywood comedy of the thirties and classic star playing. Who it is not for: the humour is of its time, the women stay inside types, and the premise rests on a single joke.