Personal Property Reviews

Damn you, W.S. “Woody” Van Dyke! I mean, you’ve given the world The Thin Man, as perfect a romance/screwball comedy/noir as a movie can be, but your filmography is also littered with films hampered by your “one-and-done” philosophy of film-making.

Personal Property is the giddy, romantic, screwball comedy just yearning for a director like Preston Sturges, Howard Hawks, or Ernst Lubitsch to nurture and flower into full bloom. The completely ridiculous plot is the type we typically see in a screwball comedy: battle of the sexes, battle between the classes, mistaken identities, courting one person while falling in love with another. It’s a frothy entertainment, and could have been much better with a director more suited to this material.

But Personal Property is charming enough as it exists. Jean Harlow and Robert Taylor play off of each other nicely, and develop a pleasing chemistry. A scene in which they mime a picnic in their house is all small glances, bubbling attraction, and spritely verbal sparring. They’re given tremendous support from veteran character actors like E.E. Clive and the always welcome, slightly screechy Una O’Connor. Watching Harlow in this film, one would never guess that this was her final completed performance, and that she would die soon after. She seems so alive, like the fiery Pre-Code Harlow had finally found a proper vehicle for her charms and wits in this new era.