ksf-2 When stylish Sylvia Robertson (Elizabeth Allan) keeps dropping her packages, Max (Leslie Howard) keeps picking them up and returning them to her. He follows her back to her hotel, and asks the clerk about her, and the clerk is quite willing to tell all about her -- so much for privacy! Then we see Max speaking with Countess Ricardi (Benita Hume), who is calling from her bathtub. Max heads off to work, and manages to find out where Sylvia is going on holiday, so he decides to follow her (like a stalker....) This love triangle is one of the early talkies, and there are some clever lines and comedy moments via the identity mixups and surprises. The middle portion of the story supposedly takes place in an exotic European ski lodge, but I'm sure it was all done in a film lot on Paramount UK studios. Our story, originally by Ernest Vajda, ends up being a statement on love between the classes. Everyone behaves badly, but the best performance is by Morton Selten, as Sylvia's father. Enjoyable film, but I personally thought the ending was a little abrupt; it ties up some loose ends, and leaves us with another funny scene. Now, on IMDb, "run time" shows UK version 93 minutes, but US version only 73 minutes, and that is indeed what we saw on Turner Classic... That may explain why the end is so abrupt... what's in those missing 20 minutes ?? This1932 version seems to be a remake of the 1927 silent film, which starred Adolphe Menjou.

theowinthrop This is a charming, dated and amusing little trifle from 1932. Leslie Howard plays Max, the Major Domo of a London Grand Hotel's cooking staff, in charge of their main dining room. He once served a well known European monarch (George Grossmith) and is on a friendly basis with the king even now. He decides to take a vacation in order to avoid a much married countess (Benita Hume), and he goes abroad meeting an attractive young woman (Elizabeth Allan) and her father (Morton Selden). Going to an expensive alpine hotel, Howard continues romancing Allan. Then Grossmith arrives for his yearly "incognito" vacation at the hotel. Grossmith's friendly attention to Howard makes the guests and staff of the hotel think that the latter must be royalty too. A photograph of him with the monarch appears in a London paper, and Hume heads for the hotel to confront him, and threaten to expose him unless he 1) introduces her to the monarch; and 2) seriously pay attention to her for a change. This naturally puts a dent into his dating Allan, and he ends up trying to balance between them (one nice touch: at dinner he has to light both their cigarettes at the same time!). The film then follows as a chastened Howard flees back to London - but is he free of Allen yet?It was a different, class conscious age from ours. I'm not totally against the end of this, but it also meant that we lost some of the elegance that went with class divisions (such as dinning in specific clothing, or expecting certain niceties like brandy in snifters and cigars at certain times of the day). As such SERVICE FOR LADIES is a lovely time capsule of the class system of 1932. The cast is a good one, in particular the five leads (headed by Howard), who mingle common sense and social standards of their time quite well.One last comment: I cannot help thinking that the sensible, rather modern monarch in the film is based on the most popular king in Europe in 1932. This was King Albert I of Belgium, who was probably the first modern king in the 20th Century. Albert was king by accident (his cousin, the heir to the throne, died prematurely, and he inherited the position of King when his uncle, the notorious Leopold II - of the "Congo Horrors" Scandal - died in 1909). Leopold had not cared for the democratic trimmings that he was supposed to support, but Albert paid more attention to them. He did not make a big splash (as Leopold did) on the society pages. He stuck closely to his family. In World War I, when Germany invaded Belgium to get at France, Albert heroically stayed at the front fighting the invaders, and would remain leading the tiny Belgium army units throughout the War for the allies. An international hero in 1918, unlike so many of the monarchs of the day he did not disgrace his country. I do not know if Albert traveled incognito but it is probable that his traveling was somewhat low keyed. He liked to go abroad for his favorite hobby - mountain climbing. That too reminds us of he foreign hotel in this film, where people go skiing all the time. Unfortunately for King Albert he was killed in 1934 in a mountain climbing accident.The monarch in the film played by George Grossmith certainly is egalitarian. He does not really like a big fuss for himself (although the staff does actually bend over backwards for him, and the guests are aware of who he actually is). His small talk with Selden, in one scene, deals with their liver problems, and the pills both take. But his conversations with his old friend Howard are quite interesting. Both men dislike politicians as men who pretend to morality without having morals, and both realize that the bulk of people are snobbish - only servants and monarchs realize how silly most social class distinctions really are.

bkoganbing Service For Ladies is an early film by producer Alexander Korda in Great Britain before he started his London Film Company. This one was made under the auspices of Paramount Pictures shot over on the other side of the pond and released in America and in the United Kingdom under their white mountain banner.I'm not sure how well it did here because it deals with the European concept of class distinctions. Not that we don't have it here, but in America it usually involves money. Over there it's titles.Leslie Howard plays the head waiter at a posh London night spot where Morton Selten and daughter Elizabeth Allan are dining out. One look at her and he chases her to the continent when he hears she's going to a resort. And she gets it in her head that Howard is some kind of royalty. After all there is a king from some unnamed country vacationing there who knows Howard who is played by George Grossmith. Of course the king's dined at Howard restaurant before.Service For Ladies is kind of a Cinderella story in reverse where the boy is the one who gets the magical evening. Howard plays the role with his usual charm. I'm sure it did well over in Europe, I can't see it having much of a market in Depression America. Still it's a nice dated antique of a film.

ilprofessore-1 Hungarian-born director/producer Sir Alexander Korda was responsible for bringing what had once been the provincial English cinema into world prominence through a series of spectacular pre-World War II films -–among them "Thief of Bagdad," "Rembrandt,""Four Feathers," "Drums," and "The Private Life of Henry VIII." Their exceptional performances and lavish production values were even the envy of the grand Hollywood studios. In later years as head of his own international company, London Films, Korda only produced, but here in this stylish 1931 film made in the early days of sound and on-the-cheap at the Paramount British studios, he chose to direct as well. Ironically, the film stars that quintessential Englishman, London-born Leslie Howard, whose parents were also Hungarian expatriates settled in the UK. Perhaps because the film was written by the two of Korda's fellow countrymen, script by Lajos Biro from a story by Ernest Vajda, there is a naughty continental touch to this film, more Lubitsch and Molnar than British, with suave Howard pursuing or being pursued by two sexy English beauties, Elizabeth Allen and Benita Hume. (The latter was to marry Ronald Coleman and George Sanders.) Keep an eye out for the future Lady Korda, the gorgeous Anglo-Indian actress Merle Oberon, seen here as only an extra.