The Devil to Pay!

The Devil to Pay!
Directed by George Fitzmaurice
Written by Frederick Lonsdale and Benjamin Glazer
1930/US
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Lord Leland: Now… now you’re blaming me for bringing you into the world!
Willie Hale: Heh, heh, I should be extremely mortified for your sake if I had to blame anyone else.

This is a pleasant romantic comedy made more pleasant by the dulcet tones of Ronald Colman.

The story begins in Africa where wastrel rogue Willie Hale (Colman) is auctioning off his house and possessions, which his father Lord Leland paid for, to pay his passage back to England.  Lord Leland is not too keen on accepting him back to the household but paternal love prevails and he is allowed to stay.  Willie then meets Dorothy Hope (Loretta Young), an heiress who is a friend of his sister and engaged to marry a Russian aristocrat. Their attraction is immediate.  But Colman has also met with ex-flame Mary (Myrna Loy), a sexy actress who would welcome a rekindling of their affair.

If you’ve seen many rom-coms of the era, you will have a pretty good idea where this is going.  There are the requisite number of misunderstandings before the requisite happy ending.

I enjoyed this for the stars and the witty script.  Loretta Young was only 17 when she made this film.  Colman was 38.

Clip – Colman negotiates for an Asta lookalike