Private Secretary

I'm always interested in a new-to-me pre-Code, so when TCM ran Behind Office Doors some months back, I decided to record it to be able to watch later and do a post on it. Recently, I finally got around to watching it, so now we get the post on it.

Mary Astor plays Mary Linden, and as the movie opens she's walking up to her apartment where she lives with a co-worker roommate Delores (Kitty Kelly) who is hosting a party. One of the guests suggests they play a truth or dare-like game, which introduces Mary to Ronnie Wales (Ricardo Cortez) even though what we learn about his character makes us wonder how he learned about the party. Ronnie seems interested in Mary, but he's trapped in a loveless marriage, one of the tropes of movies of the day. Mary isn't interested in him beyond friendship, however.

Mary works for the Ritter Paper Company as the personal secretary to the president, John Ritter (Charles Sellon), and she's really the one who runs the place, as she knows everything before the boss knows it. Mary wasn't interested in Ronnie the previous night because she actually has the hots for one of the young salesmen there, James Duneen (Robert Ames). This, even though he doesn't realize it and it's an era where she can't be direct with him. Mary uses confidential information to help James get ahead, which seems highly unethical, but there you are.

Ritter, having built the company up from nothing over the past 40 years, has reached the age where the doctors tell him he has to retire, but what to do with the business? There's a depression on, the movie hiavng been released in 1931, and finding someone willing to buy the place might be tough. Mary is forward-thinking, however, and suggests that Ritter sell the company to the employees, who will pay back Ritter from the firm's profits. This would allow for promoting someone from the inside to the position of president, and we know who Mary has in mind.

But James doesn't get that Mary is interested in him, and has a string of girlfriends. He even hires his latest girlfriend to be secretary to the president once he gets that job, despite the fact that said girlfriend is utterly unsuited to the job. Things get even worse when Mary sets James up with a business connection with a prominent banker, and James winds up getting engaged to the banker's daughter! It's all too much for Mary, but what's she going to do? Will she end up with the right man and be able to find true happiness?

Despite the fact that Behind Office Doors is a pre-Code and certainly touches on any number of subjects that wouldn't be discussed a few years later, the ending becomes surprisingly conventional and doesn't quite hold up to the promise the first half. Mary Astor does well, but Robert Ames wasn't really leading man material here and Cortez isn't given enough to do. Still, Behind Office Doors offers an interesting enough look at the way Hollywood viewed business back in the early 1930s.