Breakfast For Two (1937)

 

Breakfast For Two - 1937

After a turkey coma, the best thing is 1937's "Breakfast For Two".  In this film, two people bond over breakfast after meeting each other for the first time the previous evening.  Love blossoms, but an untimely interruption rips them apart.  Can they find their way to love again?

The film's cast includes Barbara Stanwyck, Herbert Marshall, Glenda Farrell, Eric Blore, Donald Meek, Etienne Girardot, and Frank M. Thomas.

Spoiled playboy Jonathan Blair wakes up one morning and finds a strange woman in his house.  They are both in their evening clothes.  Apparently, they met the night before in a bar.  Jonathan needed help getting home so the young lady obliged.  However, she was prevented from leaving by Jonathan's huge Great Dane, so she spent the night.

Jonathan's valet, Butch, takes a liking to the young woman, and he tells her a little bit about the Blair family while Jonathan is changing.

The two have breakfast together and sparks fly.  They read each other's palms, and Jonathan gets his hand buttered by her after he burns it on some hot toast.  Their breakfast meeting couldn't be going any better.

Unfortunately, Jonathan's old girlfriend, actress Carol Wallace, arrives and spoils things.  Our other young lady, so far unnamed, watches the scene and collects her fur coat.

She heads out of the mansion in a hurry without even so much as telling Jonathan her name.

Meanwhile, Jonathan is very low on cash.  A representative from the family shipping company arrives with a quarterly stipend and Jonathan is ecstatic.  "Call up the butcher, the baker, and the cocktail maker!  They're about to be paid off!" he says excitedly.

However, due to Jonathan's mismanagement of the business, he is informed that the officers of the company will no longer be able to collect salaries.  Jonathan is now out of money.  The scene is humorous as we watch his dog Peewee greet the business representative.

Jonathan is able to find out who is mysterious guest was.  Her name is Valentine Ransome, and she's a wealthy Texas oil heiress.  She's told all about the Blair family and how the company has been run into the ground.  Seeing an opportunity to get Jonathan back on his feet and fall in love with her at the same time, Valentine begins to buy controlling interest in the company, hoping it will make him mad enough to dive into action.

Once he finds out that Valentine is running the Blair Shipping Company, Jonathan is furious and marches into his old office to tell her so.

He gets even angrier when he finds out that she's going to be the new tenant of his mansion.  When she visits the place, they get into a sparring match in the gymnasium, with Jonathan and Butch coming out the losers.  Eventually, due to a slip of the tongue by Butch, Jonathan realizes that Valentine is hoping to marry him and is using his company to do so.

He decides to move in with and get married to Ms. Carol Wallace, who is not exactly thrilled about having a Great Dane in the house.

After Valentine makes him a Vice President of the company, Jonathan goes to the office just long enough to tell her that he's getting married.

What follows is perhaps the most hysterical wedding scene I've ever watched.  Valentine engineers enough disturbances to have the whole thing postponed.  And the poor Justice of the Peace can't even open his mouth without some sort of noise occurring.  He gets very frustrated.  Even Peewee can't stand all the noise in the room.

All of this spurs Jonathan into action.  He thinks up a plan that will save the company.  He is watched by a proud Valentine as he presents the plan to the board, who approve wholeheartedly.

However, Jonathan still plans on getting married to Carol.  He gets continually frustrated when the Justice of the Peace pronounces his name "Joe Nathan" instead of "Jonathan" every single time.  That poor judge is worried more noises will happen, so he moves speedily through the ceremony.

Before the couple can say "I do", Butch runs in with a document that says Jonathan and Valentine were married on the night that they first met.  (It's a forgery, but it stops the wedding just the same).  Jonathan storms off to confront Valentine.

Everything turns out all right.  Jonathan and Valentine get married for real by the same Justice of the Peace, who must now compete with the noise of a train station for the ceremony, which provides a humorous component to the ceremony.

Cast rundown:

   Barbara Stanwyck.............................Valentine Ransome

   Herbert Marshall...............................Jonathan Blair

   Glenda Farrell...................................Carol Wallace

   Eric Blore.........................................Butch

   Donald Meek....................................Justice Of The Peace

   Etienne Girardot...............................Mr. Meggs

   Frank M. Thomas..............................Sam Ransome

And that's all for Breakfast For Two.  It's a very fun film from start to finish.  The chemistry between Barbara Stanwyck and Herbert Marshall is pure joy to watch.  This film features one of the first uses of air quotes and also the term "pub crawling".

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