Overrated

As Good As It Gets

Absolutely brilliant

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Ellen (Loretta Young) arrives at a mansion seeking work as a domestic. Although she has no previous experience and normally wouldn't have been hired, the cruel head butler (Basil Rathbone) thinks she's a hot tomato and hires her--presumably so he can one day have his way with her. However, the unexpected happens...the son of the family she now works for soon falls for her. Richard (Robert Taylor) is very persistent and eventually they begin seeing each other on the sly. It becomes serious...so serious that he wants to marry her. But if she does, will the family accept her? And what about the cruel head butler? He's not the sort to just give up...especially when he has something he can blackmail her with should he choose to do so.This is a very interesting film when you realize how tall Basil Rathbone was in real life. He wasn't a small guy...but here the director must be manipulating perspective to make him look much taller and more menacing. So, while he's only less than two inches taller than Robert Taylor, he towers over him...and everyone else. This was actually a smart move and really made him seem all the more awful!So is this any good? Well, considering the actors, it couldn't help but be very good. Young and Taylor are very good but Rathbone steals the show with his shear awfulness...he really was a terrific villain. Also, in a small role, Monroe Owsley was AMAZING as a pusilanimous jerk...and his courtroom scene is one of the best I've seen in some time. Too bad Owsley died the following year. Well worth seeing and satisfying all around.

This was one of the few Robert Taylor films where he actually does a decent job with the role he's give. This is Loretta Young's film though...with a splash of Patsy Kelly and a huge dog thrown in.Loretta come comes to the big city to find work and decides to try being a maid at a rich family's home. With the help of Patsy Kelly she gets in he door to talk to the creepy head of the servants...the butler played by Basil Rathbone. He's a scheming sort and goes for her in a big way but she always manages to skirt the issue around him. She finally meets the family's son and that's it. They fall in love and that's it. Well...almost.This is a decent enough picture. Normally I don't do to well with Robert Taylor but in this he gets by. This along with maybe, Johnny Eager are probably the only films I can swallow with him in it. In this he goes without a mustache and honestly, I think he looks way better. Loretta Young is a fine actress and she always brings you into her innocence in her films. Patsy Kelly is just the same as always. A wisecracker with the best lines in the film. She's a spark plug throughout this. Basil Rathbone really plays the smarmy head butler very well. So well you'll hate him. The dog, a huge great dane, is just a star all the way. Watch all his gestures. Most of the scenes he's in seem so natural and not set up with a trainer. This big sucker had personality.Throughout, this film was good but towards the end it just gets to be a bit...yeah rightish. There are scenes where if the character would speak up a lot of what happens would work themselves out but they up the snobbery and bossiness to keep it going. The end takes place in a court room to annul the marriage and the groom doesn't even show up until the end of the trial. I mean the guy signs the annulment papers for it to go through and he's not in court the whole time? Come on. The court scenes are actually a laugh. Not really well done but acceptable. His whole family lies to get to point in court and they leave without an aftermath of all this. I mean they blatantly lie and no punishment. I thought lying in court was a crime. Not in this film. They just let it slide without an outcome. Of course this is suppose to be a love story. Working class maid marries the rich son. Perfect for its day and age in the middle of the depression.Pretty good little film. Grab it and see a really young Loretta Young and Robert Taylor. Stay and watch it for Patsy Kelly and the huge Dog. You'll probably get a kick out of it like I did.

Although Private Number is nowhere near as gritty as Midnight Mary, it is beautifully photographed (Fox Movie Channel's print is lovely), and Loretta Young is almost as gorgeous here as she was in that awesome precode classic, certainly more beautiful than she was in the 1940's favorites The Bishop's Wife and The Farmer's Daughter.Loretta looks especially beautiful with Robert Taylor in Private Number; they make a gorgeous couple. Did they ever have a romance off screen? They looked perfectly suited to one another physically.Favorite scenes take place up at a lake in Maine, although I can't understand why Loretta's character leaves her friend the maid's character (played with pizazz by Patsy Kelly) alone naked on the shore (friend had lost bathing suit in the water). Loretta, instead of helping her, takes off with Robert Taylor's character on his boat, abandoning her friend. I'd never do that to my friend!. In fact that was the most annoying thing to me about the film: Patsy Kelly was always supporting Loretta and Loretta never did anything to repay her.Basil Rathbone was downright scary as the butler. He was colder and more frightening here than he was with Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina, and that's saying a lot! I like the way Loretta shudders in the beginning after she first meets the butler. It made me laugh. Listen to your instincts, girl, leave! But no, she's coaxed into staying by Patsy Kelly's character, Gracie.Monroe Owsley has a small but impressive role as James Coakley, a weak scoundrel on the make. He was to die only a year later after a car crash. Jane Darwell and Billy Bevan put in appearances as servants. Marjorie Gateson did well in the role of Robert Taylor's mother. Also worthy of note is the beautiful large dog, Prince, played by "Hamlet". I would love to have an affectionate dog like that! I wonder who his trainer was? He was adorable. When he puts his paw up on Loretta at one point to comfort her, I sighed "Awwwwww!" 8 out of 10 stars.

Roy Del Ruth delivers another firecracker entertainment. Loretta Young is a gorgeous, working girl along the lines of Ann Sothern's Maisie character. She rightfully wins the love of rich boy Robert Taylor with support from a feisty Patsy Kelly and interference from a deliciously snakey Rathbone. There's a perverse sexual undercurrent in Rathbone's performance that's a joy to watch. A pre-code gem!