Pillow to Post

source: Pillow to Post

Jean Howard (Ida Lupino) is a single 30 year old in L. A living off of her oil tycoon father's money. With all the men away at war, she convinces him to be his new oil well supply salesman despite never working a day in her life. It's not going well but she refuses to come home. With the wartime shortage, she stumbled upon housing near an army base but they only take in army families. Lt. Don Mallory gives her a lift and she recruits him to be her fake husband. He's forced into the situation when his commanding officer Colonel Michael Otley gets involved. In addition, potential client Earl Clark is interested. Louis Armstrong and Dorothy Dandridge do some music. Willie Best is the local driver Lucille. This is a fun rom-com. I like Ida's sassy fake-crying try-hard character. William Prince is fine as the mild-mannered do-gooder. It would work better if he's dumber. He would be easier to manipulate by Jean but he does have good banter with her. I'm still not sure that I buy him going along with her scam but a good rom-com does require some disbelief. This is pretty good. I like these characters. Their sitcom silliness is fun. I actually like this love triangle where all the sides are nice interesting characters. It's not winning any awards but it's still fun.

Pillow To Post has Ida Lupino working for her dad Paul Harvey's oil drilling supply company because his sales force have all been drafted. She has to sell John Mitchell the company supplies and get a signed order. But with wartime housing being what it is, the only room she can find is at a motel court built for GIs and their dependents. Fortunately she finds a nice lieutenant in William Prince to take on the role of husband. I'm sure you know that love will bloom as it always does in these movies. The wartime housing shortage was always a good subject for comedy, the best known being The More The Merrier. Lupino is quite frazzled in her role, but all to good effect. William Prince is an officer and a gentleman always. Nice supporting cast headed by Sydney Greenstreet as Prince's commanding officer who is on a diet to lose weight so he can go overseas. I'm betting George C. Marshall wants his officers slim and trim for the front. Pillow To Post is a nice wartime comedy that still holds up well.

You don't need to look at the credits in order to be aware that this movie is based on a stage play. Like "The More the Merrier", it's concerned with the wartime housing shortage. Unfortunately, the movie script often takes refuge in some extremely tedious "comedy" routines such as Ida Lupino's attempts to sleep on two kitchen chairs. Ida is attractively photographed and costumed, but is otherwise sadly wasted. Fortunately, the first half of the film is brisker and more lively than the second half. In fact, in the last 30 minutes or so, the screenwriters give up their attempts to open up the stage play, and are content to let the play's over-verbose dialogue take over. Greenstreet struggles vainly to make something of his role, but without good material to work with, he flounders helplessly. And alas, Louis Armstrong and his orchestra (with vocalist, Dorothy Dandridge) are but briefly glimpsed during a night club interlude. To cap it all off, production values are very moderate and Vincent Sherman's direction totally lifeless and uninteresting.

"Pillow to Post" has a title that's easy to connect with the plot of this film. It's a wartime comedy romance with a cast that's as interesting as the story. The story is built around a young woman who goes on the road as a saleswoman for her dad's oil products company. Not only is there a shortage of men for jobs like hers, but there's a housing shortage everywhere during the war. With an opening in an auto court for married couples, she concocts a plan to get a young lieutenant from a nearby Army post to pose as her husband. Just long enough to sign the registry for her. But her simple, harmless little plan of deceit quickly gets out of hand. It leads to all sorts of problems and troubles for the lieutenant, and eventually her. This begins to appear like a modern Adam and Eve tale, and the young officer soon thinks his career and life are ruined. One knows that this will all turn out okay for the girl and the soldier. But that's only after a twisted, narrow, multi-layered course of many turns and roadblocks. The two days that this story covers were more complicated than the worst obstacle course a maniacal NCO could devise. Well, its all supposed to be for fun, and it is to a degree. There's no sign of romance until the very end, and that is contrived and hard to believe. The script has very little clever dialog, and the comedy is mostly situational. In that regard, it's quite crazy, but with a scarcity of anything very laughable. Ida Lupino plays Jean Howard and William Prince plays Lt. Don Mallory. Lupino made her mark mostly in crime mysteries and dramas. She was just in a handful of comedies, and none of them fared very well. This was the best one. And the shortage of actors was also a reality during the war, with so many of them in the military. Although Prince had a lengthy career, his early roles were mostly minor ones, and after just half a dozen or so, he moved over to TV productions. He was in many series and several TV movies where he did very well. So, to give this film a boost, Warner Brothers provided some top supporting roles and a lively nighttime scene with a young Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra. There's no doubt that Satchmo Armstrong, Sydney Greenstreet and others lifted this film and kept it from being a flop. It had a $5 million box office, coming in around 70th in U. S. films for the year. Greenstreet's role as Col. Otley was very good, as were the supporting roles of a hectic Stuart Erwin as Capt. Jack Ross, whose wife was having quadruplets, and Ruth Donnelly as the auto court manager, Mrs. Grace Wingate. Willie Best is very good as the porter, Lucille, and Johnny Mitchell is okay as Earl "Slim" Clark. The best reason for seeing this movie by modern audiences would be to see the very young Louis Armstrong with his trumpet and orchestra, and a very nice role played by the always entertaining English actor, Sydney Greenstreet. Here are the best lines from this film. J. R. Howard, "Jean, you've never done a day's work in your life." Jean Howard, "I never had to. Oh, give me a chance will you?" Jean Howard, "Are you a single lieutenant?" Don Mallory, "Yes. Just one." Jean Howard, "It's so hard to tell if a man is married. Course, a girl always wears a ring on her finger." Don Mallory, "Mmm hmm, a man always wears one through his nose." Don Mallory, "You mean, if you can be married and stay single, fine, but ..." Jean Howard, "Yes." Jean Howard, "You don't have to know me. All you have to do is marry me. I mean, pretend to marry me, just for a little while." Col. Michael Otley, "Lucille, everyone in the Army isn't a general." Lucile, "No, sir, but you'd be surprised how my tips increased after I started calling everyone general."

Once again, Ida Lupino does things "the hard way", but this time, it's for laughs. All of Hollywood's top female dramatic stars did a comedy at some point in their career, and this was Lupino's turn. It's another World War II crowded conditions comedy, and like "The Doughgirls", this features a woman scheming to pretend to be married just so she can get a room. Ida's a business woman near San Diego who desperately tries to find a lieutenant to be her husband, and a ton of complications occur. The unlucky lieutenant she grabs onto is William Prince, and he is unaware that his commanding officer (Sydney Greenstreet) lives in the auto court run by acerbic Ruth Donnelly. Barbara Brown adds a few giggles as Greenstreet's squeaky voiced dimwit wife who interferes in the "newleywed's" business. More laughs are added by Willie Best as " Lucille" the handyman. He actually gets to say, "I never forget a face, especially when I sat on it!", although with total innocence. Louis Armstrong appears to entertain the troops with an unknown Dorothy Dandridge. While Lupino had played some lighter parts earlier in career, by this time, she was one of Warner Brother's top drama stars, but if Davis, De Havilland and Stanwyck could do comedy, then Ida could do it as well. Ironically, other than a brief musical appearance in "Thank Your Lucky Stars" before this, she never varied from drama again. However, for a rare foray into comedy, she seems pretty comfortable and manages to enjoy herself. Not quite worthy of a "Garbo laughs!" slogan, she's nevertheless a lot of fun.

As a corollary to "Where's The Beef"? I would ask, re: this dumbass movie, "Where's The Satch?"

Whenever I run low on unseen movies to record, I check TCM for titles I've seen before but don't remember. In this wise, I found PILLOW TO POST. It didn't fire off any neurons, but it had Vincent Sherman directing Ida Lupino, Sidney Greenstreet, and lesser Warner Brothers supporting players. It was a comedy and the rating I had given it was that it was superior. So I set it to record, intending to watch it as part of my weekend waking up routine. Ida Lupino takes a job in the waning days of the Second World War working as a saleswoman for her father's oil company. Out in the hinterlands, she needs a place to sleep, but between the oil fields and an Army training base, the only place she can find is a motel -- and they accept only married officers and their wives. So Ida ropes in William Prince to get a night's sleep. Complications, as they say, ensue. Looking at it, I don't understand what I was thinking when I thought it was very good. It's directed in that frantic, forced, smirking manner the Warners set for their comedy B movies in the late 1930s, when they realized they couldn't talk about sex, but they could wink and everyone would get it. It's lazy writing and rote performances and no one is having a good time, except possibly for Barbara Brown and I don't know why I thought it was so good when I saw it before. Maybe it was the (brief) appearance of Louis Armstrong and his orchestra. Whatever it was, it isn't enough now. I guess my taste has changed. I hope it's for the better.

Ida Lupino was mostly known for drama but she does well in comedy. Its too bad the script wasn't as good as she was. It has some laughs and cute moments but it misses the mark as a screwball comedy or a farce. It is still enjoyable and worth seeing. It is fun seeing Greenstreet in a non villainous role.

Ida Lupino stars as a saleslady working for her father's company. As it was during WWII, women were assuming many jobs held by men and Ida does this to help out with the war effort. However, she turns out to be pretty bad at sales and by the time she gets to one remote location, she's desperate. But things only get worse, as there is a military base nearby and so there are no spare hotel rooms. On a lark, she checks into a motel designated for spouses of servicemen. However, she's single and lies to get the room--and unless she wants to get tossed out, she'll have to find some guy to pose as her husband. The unsuspecting shmoe is a young lieutenant (William Prince)--whose nice gesture completely blows up in his face. And now, they are stuck together--otherwise the Lieutenant will be in serious trouble with his Colonel. Can all this be straightened out and Lupino and Prince avoid serious consequences? This is a nice screwy comedy that was pretty timely--as there was a severe housing shorting during the war. In many ways, the theme is reminiscent of the wonderful comedy "The More the Merrier"--though this latter film is much more of a classic. "Pillow to Post", on the other hand, is rather slight...enjoyable but slight. snafu