Maybe It's Love

Maxwell Anderson's very popular 1927 play, with 3 television productions as well as the three movies versions, has some very funny moments. The top-notch cast has Gloria Stuart, of Titanic (1996) fame, and Ross Alexander as the romantic leads in a seesaw romance. The highlight of the movie is the way Stuart gets Alexander to marry her, as coached by big sister Ruth Donnelly, who supplies cues in shorthand, and accurately predicts Alexander's responses to Stuart's actions and statements. I couldn't stop laughing at the entire sequence, even though I had seen the remake, Saturday's Children (1940). Unfortunately, the second half of the movie doesn't sustain the comedy of the first half, and degenerates into more of a drama about the difficulties in marriage. Still, the movie is a winner.