blanche-2 Broadway must have had dozens of these drawing room comedies featuring rich, well-dressed people speaking snappily to one another. I say "must have" because Hollywood seems to have adapted all of them. "No More Ladies" is yet another one, and for my money, it's pretty routine. Joan Crawford is a rich girl in love with a cad, played by Robert Montgomery. They marry and he's still a cad. In fact, instead of going to their country house one weekend, he delays his trip and has a dalliance with a woman named Therese. He admits this when he finally shows up in the country. He has little choice when he learns that his alibi, Charlie Ruggles, is actually at the country home. In retaliation, Crawford invites an old beau and a couple of ex-girlfriends to a huge party.The dialogue is witty, the clothes are glamorous, the apartment and house are sumptuous, and the performances are very good. Montgomery was always perfect in these roles, and Crawford is attractive and spars with Montgomery well. Edna Mae Oliver is superb as always. Charles Ruggles plays a somewhat annoying drunk. Gail Patrick, who became Gail Patrick Jackson and produced "Perry Mason," having married Erle Stanley Gardner's agent, does very well as the pretty other woman.This is one of those films where one asks, so why wasn't I crazy about it? The only reason is that there was a sameness about it and nothing really to differentiate it - including the cast - from all the other light, romantic comedies. It's no wonder that Robert Montgomery fought so hard to make "Night Must Fall." He was incredibly bored with these roles. It's understandable.

roof12 One of many such comedies of the 1930s, No More Ladies focuses on the dilemma of a rich single woman (Joan Crawford) attracted to an energetic magnetic playboy (Robert Montgomery) who seems to exist without a shred of morality or self-control. What makes this film different from the typical mistaken lover comedy is the directness with which the Crawford character approaches her problems. The best part of the film, however, is Frannie, Crawford's grandmother who combines the best of Eve Arden with the best of Thelma Ritter. Also notable is Charlie Ruggles as a drunken friend of the playboy. The film's style is also worthy of attention. Reminiscent of surrealism and art nouveau the luxury sets of these characters' existence provide visual pleasure in themselves, if only in their extravagant elegance. Robert Montgomery fans will see him in his best boyish self-gratification mode, while fans of Crawford may find her a bit flat.

theowinthrop For sporadic moments of amusement "No More Ladies" is perfectly satisfactory. It has the MGM lusciousness and gleam that the other studios envied. Note the great looking costumes on Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, and Gail Patrick wear. The sophistication is showed by the ho-ho-ho jokes that are dropped by the likes of Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Franchot Tone, and Edna Mae Oliver. This is the type of film that has the hero with a name like "Sherry". People go to night clubs, and to fancy restaurants, and take drives in Central Park at night (it is, after all, the 1930s).The film is a bore - it occasionally amuses because of the cast, but the dialog is brittle for the sake of brittle. It is Noel Coward's world but not the real wit he brought - Coward's best plays show a streak of harshness and mutual malevolence mixed with affection in his couples like Amanda and Elyot in "Private Lives". They also tend to be smarter than the characters here.Also the characters are not all that amusing nowadays. Montgomery's cousin is Charlie Ruggles, who is constantly drunk. Ruggles is a favorite comedian to me, but here he was dull. Reginald Denny is around as a British version of Ralph Bellamy - an available alter-suitor to Montgomery for Crawford, and while Denny is elegant (in a skittish sort of way) he is not at all as amusing as Ralph Bellamy was in "His Girl Friday" or The Awful Truth".After watching this film I stopped to consider the three leads. Montgomery was typecast for most of the 1930s (except for an occasional film like "The Big House") as a happy, amoral socialite. Nobody really played the upper-crust cad as well as he did, but he got bored by it, and fought for meatier parts - and after his brilliant Danny in "Night Must Fall" he got them. Crawford reveled in parts like the hard-working lower class girl fighting her way to happiness, but she did many "socialite" parts as well. Along came "The Women", and she played a villainous social climber. After that came the really hard-boiled darker parts of the 1940s and 1950s like "Mildred Pierce" and "A Woman's Face" and "Flamingo Road". Tone, in 1935, would start having roles like Bryam in "Mutiny On The Bounty" - like Montgomery he would play his wealthy cads, but he would be able to step into nastier, meatier roles like "The Phantom Lady" and "The Man On The Eiffel Tower". When one talks to their fans about the great work of these three actors, it is the films where they played characters with demons after them that are recalled. Few really recall a piece of meaningless cotton candy like "No More Ladies" regarding any of them.

blcrumpacker This film is not entirely dismal. Robert Montgomery is light and smooth as the playboy who nails anyone he wants, including the wives of his friends. The long list includes Gail Patrick, who plays Carole Lombard's nasty older high society sister in "My Man Godfrey". In this bizarro world film, she is a banjo playing bar fly. Anyway, before RM and Joan Crawford get married, he is told not to go into her room because she is in bed. Response: "Since when is a lady in bed an object of repugnance?" Joan runs around in sharp designer outfits, and restrains herself from chewing the scenery - much. In short, some snappy dialogue amid the heavy drinking and innuendos. To quote someone clever, "marriage is the death of hope and the birth of despair." BC