Brief Moment

Visually, I would have to give this little number a solid 10.

Carol Lombard is at her exquisite best, and one could look at Gene Raymond for a long time without blinking. The cinematography (by Ted Tetzlaff) is absolutely wonderful, and the Columbia design studios provided visuals that are eminently worth recording.

The night club where Lombard preforms is decorated with life-size bronze deer, cast after a model dug up at Pompeii. When Carol/Abby is taken to meet her stuffy potential in-laws, the famous Lombard nipples are pointing directly at her fiancée's mother (covered of course by a little something whipped up by the great costumier Travis Banton).

There is a great scene where the newly-weds are standing at the rail of a big ocean liner, an iconic 30's image with Carol wearing a marvelous hat as only she can. The apartment that Gene/Rodney brings his wife home to is swellegant. (This is an actual 30s expression, as I found it in a catalogue of Warren McArthur furniture published c. 1934!)

Mind you, it's not a "great" film, but it is very entertaining visually--the quintessence of the early 1930s. The original play was by S.N. Berman, so it certainly has good bones.

And ANYTHING with Carol Lombard is well worth watching! Not only was she staggeringly beautiful, but her acting is exquisitely nuanced to well capture a broad range of emotions, whatever her role.