The Man from Toronto (1933)
According to the terms of a will two strangers must marry. Leila (Jessie Matthews) is an English widow, and Fergus (Ian Hunter) is a Canadian bachelor. Both are bequeathed a fortune, but there is a condition to receive it; the two must marry within a year. To aid matters, Leila disguises herself as Fergus' maid, and the two begin to fall in love. However, when Fergus discovers the truth, he is less than pleased by the deception.
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the audience applauded
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Jessie Matthews is due to inherit a quarter million pounds if she marries Ian Hunter. They've never met, since he is the titular Man from Toronto. When he comes to England to meet this proposed bride, Miss Matthews wants to get to know him before he knows she's worth a fortune to him, so she disguises herself as her own parlor maid and convinces him that the dotty Margaret Yorke is her. When they have fallen in love, Mr. Hunter explains that he loves her in large part because she would never lie to him. And it's off to the races with this silly plot.Miss Matthews is very charming and the movie is quite funny, despite the fact that she only does about thirty seconds of dancing and never sings. Mr. Hunter is very masculine in his role; most of Miss Matthews' leading men seem to be frightened of women.The cast is ably eked out with Frederick Kerr as Miss Matthews' grumbling uncle, and Kathleen Harrison in her fourth screen role as her maid. If this movie makes no serious point except for Miss Yorke's frequently repeated "We must have money!", it is still a delightful trifle.
The Man from Toronto (1933) is a perfectly cute and entertaining movie. Jessie Matthews (Leslie Fararr) shines in her role as the rich girl who pretends to be a maid. This is the first movie I've seen her in and I was very much impressed by the way she carried herself throughout the film. The love interest is unfortunately plain and not particularly attractive, but the romance is believable. Some scenes are too long and unnecessary, but on the whole a well directed and edited movie. This little known film should get more recognition because it is quite cute and funny at times. Good clean fun from the magical world of the '30s. 6/10
This is the first time I have seen Jessie Mathews as I'm only 41 years old. I was absolutely delighted to see a star of the past that id never seen before. From the first time we see her its love at first sight and it just draws you right into the movie. I understand Jessie Mathews was a superstar in her time and its easy to see why. You could transpose her to any movie of today and she would still be a superstar, in the Julia Roberts or Reese Witherspoon etc (or maybe even better) League of today.The uncle lawyer gave a good performance as well. It was interesting to see the movie from a historical perspective as well like the motor cars which was quite amazing.Overall a great movie.
A fairly simple and predictable love story vehicle for Jessie Matthews. I found it watchable as a slice of life in 1933. What it might have been like living in a village where everybody knew each others business and rumors spread like wild fire. I liked seeing a village parade complete with brass bands and floats. It was interesting to see manual phone exchanges with switch board operators connecting overseas calls and cars starting to gain a foothold. A bit of visual history with an agreeable story line.