Frank Du Frane Movies

More burdened with leaden production numbers than plot, Rosalie took Sigmund Romberg and George Gershwin's 1928 Broadway hit, threw out most of the songs, including "How Long Has This Been Going On?," but retained the spindly story of the incognito Princess Rosalie of Romanza (Eleanor Powell), who falls head-over-heels in love with All-American Dick Thorpe (Nelson Eddy), although she finds him conceited at first. But Dick gallantly flies to Romanza where the crooning Charles Lindbergh lands in the middle of yet another comic opera revolution. Rosalie, of course, is engaged to someone else, but after a series of misadventures and a colossal closing number, the star-crossed lovers decide to settle down together in democratic America. Cole Porter was hired to write a new score and Eleanor Powell, Nelson Eddy, and newcomer Ilona Massey perform "I've Got a Strange New Rhythm in My Heart," "Why Should I Care?," "Spring Love is in the Air," "It's all Over but the Shouting," "Who Knows?," "To Love and Not to Love," and, most memorably, "In the Still of the Night." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Having turned down the opportunity to produce Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), MGM's Louis B. Mayer had second thoughts when the Capra film swept the 1935 Oscars ceremony. Mayer hastily commissioned an It Happened One Night wannabe titled Love on the Run, tailored for the talents of Joan Crawford and Clark Gable (who, of course, had starred in the Capra picture, and had copped one of those Oscars). Gable and Franchot Tone play rival journalists Michael Anthony and Barnabas Pells, who travel the length and breadth of Europe to outscoop one another. Crawford portrays madcap heiress Sally Parker, who is engaged to marry fortune-hunting Prince Igor (Ivan Lebedeff). Whereas in It Happened One Night the heroine (Claudette Colbert) linked up with Gable in order to expedite her elopement with the wrong man, in Love on the Run Crawford seeks out Gable's help to escape her impending marriage with Prince Igor. The two stars combine their flight across Europe with business, dogging the trail of international aviator Baron Spandermann (Reginald Owen), whom Anthony suspects of being a spy. Pells goes along with Anthony and Parker, and soon all three of them are tied up (literally, in Pells' case) with an espionage ring. While it is Clark Gable who ends up with Joan Crawford at fadeout time, it was Franchot Tone who claimed her as his bride in real life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Consigned to the Warner Bros. "B" unit in the mid-1930s, director Robert Florey must have had a high old time trying to inject some visual dynamics into such unprepossessing projects as Going Highbrow. Guy Kibbee and ZaSu Pitts star as Mr. and Mrs. Matt Upshaw, a nouveau riche couple clearly inspired by Bringing Up Father's Jiggs and Maggie. While Matt prefers to live his life as simply as he'd done before striking it rich, Mrs. Upshaw is bound and determined to crash high society. To appease his wife, Matt hires dimwitted lunch-counter waitress Annie (Judy Canova) to pose as the Upshaw's daughter, thereby qualifying for the upcoming debutante ball. As things turn out, Annie reveals her true identity at the worst possible time, while the Upshaws are clipped for $50,000 by obsequious social "arranger" Augie (Edward Everett Horton). Though Going Highbrow represented Judy Canova's first major role at Warner Bros., the studio was unimpressed and dropped her option; in later years, Canova admitted that the picture was "not so hot." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide