Live, Love and Learn Review: Charm that runs out of gas

If you have ninety minutes to spare and love watching rich people pretend that being poor is a fun adventure, Live, Love and Learn is absolutely worth a watch tonight. But if you hate movies where the main character suddenly becomes a massive jerk for the second half just to teach us a lesson, you should probably skip this one.

It is a classic 1930s screwball that starts out incredibly fun but gets totally derailed by its own plot. 🎨

Rosalind Russell and Robert Montgomery play the newlyweds, and honestly, their chemistry at the start is pure magic.

They do that rapid-fire talking thing that makes you feel like you just drank three cups of coffee. ☕

And we have to talk about Robert Benchley, who plays their best friend Oscar. He basically steals the entire movie just by looking mildly confused in the background of every scene.

The setup is super simple. Bob is a painter who refuses to sell his art for money, and Julie is a rich girl who leaves her fancy family to live in his dusty attic apartment.

They get married almost instantly, because that is just how movies worked back then.

Everything is great until Bob gets into a random fistfight in a public park, which somehow makes him front-page news.

The park riot scene is pretty funny because you can tell the extras are trying really hard not to laugh while pretending to punch each other.

Once Bob gets famous and rich, the movie gets... well, kind of annoying. He slick backs his hair, starts wearing fancy suits, and treats his friends like garbage.

You spend the last forty minutes just wanting to shake him.

It reminded me a bit of That Girl from Paris, another comedy from around this time where the romance is super cute until the wacky plot takes over.

There is this one bizarre moment where a art dealer named Lilly is talking, and her hat is so massive it completely blocks the face of the actor standing next to her.

I kept waiting for the camera to move, but it never did.

Also, a very young Mickey Rooney shows up for about two minutes as a hyperactive paperboy.

He has so much energy he practically vibrates off the screen.

It is a shame the second half is such a drag because the first half is some of the best fun you can find from this era.

It stops being funny and starts lecturing us about artistic integrity, which nobody actually wanted to hear in 1937.

Still, it is a hundred times more watchable than something like The Mandarin Mystery which is just a total chore to get through.

Random thoughts while watching:

• Robert Benchley’s mustache deserves its own star on the Walk of Fame.
• The apartment they live in is supposed to be "poor," but it is actually huge.
• I am pretty sure Montgomery actually hit someone during that park scene.
• Nobody in history has ever been as excited about buying groceries as Rosalind Russell is in this movie.