HA.com
A newspaperman makes a stenographer a star in the first of seven Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray films. More rom-com than screwball comedy, Paramount marketed Wesley Ruggles' 1935 entertainment as a successor to Frank Capra's It Happened One Night for which Colbert had just won the Oscar. MacMurray, by contrast, was a virtually unknown contract player.
Though Claude Binyon's script doesn't explain how they met, MacMurray's Pete Dawes and Colbert's Marilyn "Lynn" David start out as best friends who meet every Thursday at a Manhattan park bench to share a bag of popcorn. In Binyon's worldview, they have no other friends or romantic interests.
That changes when debonair Englishman Charles "Gray" Granton (Welsh actor Ray Milland, who secured the gig by pretending to be English) shields Lynn from an unruly mob desperate to squeeze onto a rush-hour subway car. He flatters and flirts his way into her heart, leading to outings on the beach and Coney Island, where a rollercoaster throttles the two so thoroughly they end up with ice cream-smeared faces. Naturally, they still look marvelous, thanks to ace costumer Travis Banton's exquisite outfits.
To Pete's chagrin, Lynn's infatuation is total, though she worries that Gray doesn't have a job. In truth, he's a royal on holiday with his father, the Duke of Loamshire (C. Aubrey Smith). The Depression looms in the background, so his apparent joblessness is hardly unusual. When he leaves town, presumably to see about a job, Lynn eagerly awaits his return, only to find an item in the paper indicating that he isn't just a blueblood—he's engaged. Pete takes his revenge by writing a series of articles claiming that the stenographer rebuffed the lord's advances. “Nobody's gonna hurt you while I'm around and get away with it!"
The stories create a sensation, and Pete suggests that Lynn, who has no singing or dancing ability, create a cabaret act out of her newfound infamy. It's the story's least likely development, though it provides the "No Girl" with paying work after she quits her steno job out of frustration with an increasingly judgmental boss. Against all odds, audiences flock to her amusingly amateurish shows, leading to a trip to England with Pete to confront Gray once and for all. The entire ordeal brings her closer than ever to her rock-solid, popcorn-sharing pal, who has never betrayed her—and never would. There's much here that isn't especially believable, so it's a boon to have three actors who elevate the scenario at every turn.
As film historian Kat Ellinger notes in her commentary track, future Oscar-winner Milland (The Lost Weekend) brings a welcome edge that contrasts with his real-life friend MacMurray's ease. The success of The Gilded Lily would make stars out of both men and convince Paramount to reteam Ruggles, Colbert, and MacMurray in the Binyon-scribed The Bride Comes Home, a less surprising, though more fulfilling rom-com in which Robert Young plays a variation on Milland's moneyed third wheel. Recommended.