LIVE, LOVE AND LEARN

US, 1937, 78 minutes, Black and white.
Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell, Robert Benchley, Helen Vinson, Monty Woolley, E.E.Clive, Mickey Rooney.
Directed by Geo. Fitzmaurice.

Live, Love and Learn is a romantic, screwball MGM style, comedy of 1937, supporting feature in the same year that the two stars appeared together in the drama, Night Must Fall.

The screenplay is slight, played for agreeable laughs by Rosalind Russell who was emerging as a leading actress at this time, and Robert Montgomery who tends to seem rather serious, even in comedies.

He is a painter, trying to be a Cezanne and Renoir, trying to make ends meet. He is out in the countryside painting when riders leap over a wall, especially Rosalind Russell, who falls of her horse. He comforts her – and they fall in love, go to a nearby farm for help, get married. She is a very wealthy woman who has never wanted anything in her life.

They go to his apartment for their honeymoon, but find the boarder, Robert Benchley in one of his typical comic roles, as the friend. The couple tries to live ordinarily, in the small apartment, the small kitchen, the cramped bedroom situation…

After a riot in the park, Montgomery becomes recognised as a painter, is feted by people and critics, takes himself particularly seriously, becomes very interested in money as he works for a personal show. This is not what Rosalind Russell bargained for and, of course, there are quite some clashes. But, it is a comedy, and priorities and love get sorted out.

There are interesting character actors in support, Helen Vinson as Lilly, the assistant; comic turns from Monty Woolley, soon to be The Man Who Came to Dinner; a role for E.E. Clive and for a very young Mickey Rooney, about to become Andy Hardy.