Behind Office Doors (1931)

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A good vehicle for Mary Astor, who always radiated intelligence and beauty; she's stunningly gorgeous as a secretary who's smarter than her boss, Robert Ames, and helps him to the presidency of a paper company while being utterly neglected. The sexism of the day is annoying--she should really be president--but the role allows Astor a lot of range, she gets to do both funny and poignant, and she's never less than a great camera subject. Ames, a major leading man who died not long after this, doesn't reveal any great appeal or ability, and the ending's never much in doubt. But it's one of the better early-talkie looks at the great Mary.

This film features Mary Astor as the brains behind a NYC paper company, manipulating the personal life and business affairs of her boss, Robert Ames, who seems oblivious of her charms and too witless, frankly, to be a captain of industry. Ricardo Cortez is her long-suffering married would-be lover (did they ever consummate their relationship in Atlantic City?).Never a Mary Astor fan, I found her performance in this film to be outstanding. She carries the movie all by herself and exhibits a wide range of emotions without once overacting, which would have been a great temptation in a film of this type. The film itself is marred by an inferior supporting cast, especially Robert Ames, and a too-hurried wrap up at the end.

I tivo'd this on Turner Classic just because it was pre-code and sounded interesting. When I got around to watching, I noticed that the "critique" gave it one and a half stars on a four-star scale. I started watching with trepidation -- even old movies can be bad movies -- but I quickly got engaged in the story and Mary Astor's performance as the business brains behind a simple salesman's rise to success. Not a truly great movie -- too predictable -- but certainly better than advertised. And I would have liked to have seen more of Ricardo Cortez as the man who appreciates Mary but won't give up his wealthy wife. I'd recommend giving it a look just to appreciate Astor and what a long way we've come, baby.

I got this movie on dvd format recently, and although much of the movies from this period are static antiques, due to sound problems and lack of camera movements, this early talkie is not that static and I had fun watching it! Mary Astor's screen presence is strong, Robert Ames' acting is good, and the rest of the cast is uniformly o.k. The plot has neither got big surprises or mysteries, nor is it too sophisticated (let's say it's no Lubitsch), but this modest picture is sincere and definitely deserves a watch. The quality of the image is great, considering it's a 1931 feature. Also note the pre-code "daring" (for then) aspects of the film, compared to movies made in Hollywood from 1934 onwards. A discovery!