Some things I liked some I did not.

From my favorite movies..

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

I'm not a big fan of most of Joan Crawford's movie from the '30s. Most of them revolve around dislikable characters, usually involved in stupid love triangles. Here's another winner. Joan's in love with Robert Montgomery, an incorrigible womanizer and liar. We're supposed to find his antics funny I guess. Anyway, Joan marries him knowing he's a louse. Then when he cheats she acts surprised and comes up with a stupid plan to get him back. Franchot Tone figures into this and he's no more likable than in any of his other movies with Joan.The comedy relief comes mostly from Edna May Oliver and Charlie Ruggles. Oliver was the best thing about the movie, though that seems overstated somewhat by other reviews I've read. She wasn't THAT good. It's not like she saved this sinking ship. For those of us who have seen Oliver in other, better movies, we know she has had better roles than this. But still, weighed against the rest of the cast, she is the best here. Ruggles is awful. He always was a mixed bag. Sometimes I could enjoy him but others he was just annoying. This is the latter, with Ruggles doing a terrible drunk act that got old in the first scene. Just a poor movie. I hated the main characters and didn't care what happened to them. Avoid it unless you're a die-hard fan of the stars and easily forgive their clunkers. Joan Fontaine makes her film debut under the name Joan Burfield.

While this genre of film is not my viewing of choice, I watched it for an entirely different reason, and was I surprised! Although a bit slow in parts, its star, Joan Crawford, seems to drag it down just a bit, by playing it too seriously. Every other character fits their part perfectly and more! Robert Montgomery is an absolute cad, Franchot Tone as suave as he can be, and all the others playing the part as though they're all a bit drunk or tipsy, make it worthwhile. Charlie Ruggles, as opposed to his later suave, smooth roles, plays a happy drunk, who lightens up the story with his goofy aphorisms, and Edna May Oliver, parodies her "dowdiness" with an endless stream of "bon mots" and one- liners for every scene, but it's Arthur Treacher, as the happy drunk, who steals the show. It's almost as though he's parodying his "Englishness" for the role, he's absolutely hilarious! I've never seen Treacher as anything but the stuffy butler, it's him who makes it worth watching and laughing! Yes, a real keeper! If you enjoy light comedy, watch this one. it's just plain FUNNY!

Just saw this little known gem on AMC, and I rather liked it. Yes, the dialogue was often banal.And yes, Joan's eyebrows are scaryBut overall, it's fun and light. I was laughing out loud, and I think you will be too. And I always wonder when seeing a movie like this - did anyone ever really live that way? The ending is a little odd.But Franchot Tone as Cousin Drunky and Edna Mae Oliver as Grandma Sarcasmo just steal the show.Arthur Treacher as the befuddled Brit is also quite clever.

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.