Living on Love (1937)

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A remake of Rafter Romance (1933), which starred Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster, Living On Love treats the story of two unwilling apartment-mates a bit more briskly and broadly, to the point of being downright screwy at times. This time out, it's Solly Ward as landlord Eli White, who takes two… More A remake of Rafter Romance (1933), which starred Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster, Living On Love treats the story of two unwilling apartment-mates a bit more briskly and broadly, to the point of being downright screwy at times. This time out, it's Solly Ward as landlord Eli White, who takes two tenants (James Dunn, Whitney Bourne) who can't afford the rent they're paying, and puts them together in the same basement apartment -- the idea is that neither one will ever see the other, as Dunn is a would-be artist who works nights at a trucking company garage, and Bourne is a saleswoman with daytime hours. Inevitably, they chafe at each other's presence as each intrudes on the other's space, and come to resent each other, a fact expressed in a series of increasingly ambitious practical jokes played on one another; similar action went on in the original film, but in Living On Love it gets carried over the top, into surreal and silly moments. But as always happens in stories like this -- and in the original film as well -- the two manage to meet away from the apartment and, not realizing who the other is, fall in love. Complications ensue involving her boss (prissy Franklin Pangborn, amazingly and effectively cast as a ladies' man) and his wealthy, dominating would-be fiancee (Joan Woodbury), but the two do finally get together on a round-the-clock, permanent basis. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi