Breakfast for Two

Herbert Marshall isn't particularly remembered for comedy. I think a good portion of the reason for that is that when he did get to do comedies, they were programmers at best. A good example of this is Breakfast for Two, which is going to be on TCM at 2:00 PM tomorrow.

Herbert Marshall plays Jonathan Blair, a wealthy businessman who has a butler named Butch (Eric Blore). One morning, Butch finds a woman named Valentine Ransome (Barbara Stanwyck) in Blair's house. It turns out that Blair went out for a night on the town, met Valentine, and got incredibly drunk; when Valentine brought him home, the dog wouldn't let her back out. So here we are.

Blair, although owning a shipping company, is the latest in what is a line Blairs in a family-owned business. And Jonathan has always seemed to be more interested in being a playboy than actually running the company, much to the consternation of the board. Valentine learns about this, so she maneuvers to take control of the company, not because she wants to be mean to Blair and take over the company through underhanded means a la Wallace Beery in Dinner at Eight; instead, she's concerned for Jonathan and doesn't want to see the company go under.

The thing is, Valentine kind of likes Jonathan. However, he already has a girlfriend in the form of actress Carol (Glenda Farrell), and indeed is even planning to marry her. Valentine thinks that too would be bad for the family business, so she has to maneuver to stop the wedding as well as keep the company afloat.

Now, we know that since Stanwyck is top-billed here, she's liable to end up with Herbert Marshall's character at the end, and the bigger reason for watching (or not watching) a movie like this is to see how the characters get to the inevitable wedding. In this case, it involves Valentine and Butch working together, much to the consternation of the Justice of the Peace (Donald Meek) who has been hired to preside over the wedding, and has to do so on multiple occasions because it keeps getting interrupted.

But for the most part, Breakfast for Two turns out to be rather lesser comedy, even in the œuvre of Herbert Marshall. In his case, I think I'd recommend Trouble in Paradise or maybe If You Could Only Cook first. Stanwyck, of course, made glittering comedies like Ball of Fire and The Lady Eve. Blore, and to a lesser extent Meek, are the best things in this one.

Breakfast for Two is one of those movies that probably should have wound up in a box set of either Marshall's or Stanwyck's movies, but instead has wound up on a standalone DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive collection.