In a sense Women Are Like That is at least three years ahead of its time. I say three years because it was in 1941 that Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made their team debut in Woman Of The Year. The story her about a husband and wife team of advertising executives would have been perfect for them with a bigger budget.
The film starts out with Pat O'Brien as the man who joined the advertising firm as an office boy marrying Kay Francis who is the boss's daughter. One of the two bosses is Thurston Hall, Kay's father and the other is Ralph Forbes who was O'Brien's rival.
After the honeymoon though the boom really gets lowered when Thurston Hall confesses he's used most of the firm's cash assets to speculate on the stock market. To save him and to save embarrassment for his wife, O'Brien gives up his stock and embarks on an austerity program at his firm. But with Forbes now running things, it gets a bit too austere to make any profit.
O'Brien's carrying his troubles home with him and it's not long before he and Francis split. She then goes into the business and proves to have a knack for it. Soon O'Brien and Francis are at rival firms.
If you're a fan of Tracy and Hepburn you'll know exactly how this harbinger film ends. For a B film it's given some good production values and an excellent supporting cast. Thurston Hall is really good as Francis's old roué of a father. He's an embezzler, but he's so charming that you can't help, but like him.
Two performances really to treasure are those of Grant Mitchell and Sarah Edwards, the glass manufacturer from Peoria and his very prim and proper wife. To land that account, Kay works on the husband and O'Brien on the wife and the results are memorable.
Ralph Forbes is interesting too. For the life of me I can't figure out how this guy got in the advertising business, he has the imagination and personality of a gnat. I can understand how things went with O'Brien and Francis in the film, but this isn't my idea of a rebound man. Ralph Bellamy in these kind of roles has more going for him.
Though the film is a B comedy/drama, it still has quite a lot going for it and maybe Jack Warner made a big mistake consigning this story to his B picture unit.
