Stubs - The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid (1989) Starring the voices of: Jodi Benson, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Pat Carroll, Samuel E. Wright, Jason Marin, Kenneth Mars, Buddy Hackett, Ben Wright. Directed by Ron Clements, John Musker, Screenplay by John Musker, Ron Clements. Based on the novel by The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. Produced by John Musker, Howard Ashman. Music by Alan Menken. Run Time: 83 minutes. U.S. Color, Animated, Musical, Fantasy

From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) through The Fox and the Hound (1981), no studio dominated animated features the way the Walt Disney Studios had. The first 44 years and 24 animated features is an envious streak. So much of what it means to be a child dates back to these films. What would it be like never to have seen Snow White or Bambi or Alice or Peter Pan? It wouldn’t have been the childhood many of us remember.

Disney was also synonymous with high quality hand-drawn animation that both set the standard and pushed the envelope. The studio even seemed to survive the death of its founder and guiding light Walt Disney in 1966. However, the wheels seemed to come off with the release of The Black Cauldron (1985). The word flop was not something associated with Disney up to then, but The Black Cauldron cost twice as much ($44 million) as it made ($22 million).

The next film, The Great Mouse Detective (1986) was a moderate success, but the bloom seemed to be off the rose. The next theatrical release, Oliver and Company (1988) was a box office success, but did not get a great critical response, especially when measured against the legacy it was a part of.

A new rebirth of Disney animation would wait until the release of The Little Mermaid (1989). Disney’s interest in the story dates back to the man himself. The concept of vignettes from Hans Christian Andersen stories was worked on soon after the release of Snow White, but for whatever reason never made it off the storyboard. In 1985, Ron Clements, then working on The Great Mouse Detective, rediscovered the story and suggested it to then Disney CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. Initially rejected in favor of a sequel to Splash (1984), Katzenberg corrected himself and greenlit the film the next day, along with Oliver and Company.

Interestingly, while Clements and John Musker were working on the film, the staff came across the original story and visual development Kay Nielsen had done for Disney’s original concept and found that many of the changes they were making to Andersen’s story planned in the 1930’s were the same ones writers in the 1980’s were also proposing.

The Little Mermaid may mark a new beginning for Disney animation, but it also marks the end of traditional hand-painted cel animation at the studio. Even then, computer animation was creeping into the production. A digital method of coloring and combining scanned drawings, known as CAPS (Computer Animation Production System), developed by some upstart called Pixar for Disney, was used experimentally in the film.

The story of the Little Mermaid starts with a concert being thrown in honor of the King Triton (Kenneth Mars) which features Triton’s daughters with the showcase reserved for his youngest daughter, the 16-year-old Ariel (Jodi Benson), only Ariel is missing.

Rather than sing at the concert, Ariel and her fish friend, Flounder (Jason Marin), are off exploring shipwrecks, something Ariel has done many times before. She has a treasure trove of salvage, including cork screws, utensils, books and assorted thingamabobs. She oftentimes doesn’t know what it is she’s found and takes them to Scuttle (Buddy Hackett), a seagull who is sort of know-it-all-know-nothing. But Ariel’s treasures make her yearn for more and above all to get out of the ocean.

Ariel and Flounder take items they find to Scuttle to explain.

King Triton is not a happy merman. He doesn’t want his daughter to be associating with humans, who are, after all, barbaric. He assigns his advisor, Sebastian (Samuel E. Wright) to keep an eye on Ariel and keep her out of trouble. But Sebastian gets drawn into Ariel’s world and ends up going with her and Flounder on their next trip to the surface. There they see the birthday celebration of Prince Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes) complete with fireworks. What Eric is prince of is never explained, but he is handsome and Ariel falls in love with him on the spot.

A storm comes, quickly turning the celebration into near tragedy. Eric is thrown overboard and plucky Ariel comes to his rescue, dragging the unconscious prince to safety on shore. Naturally, Ariel sings to him, but must retreat when he comes to as to avoid detection.

Watching all of this is Ursula (Pat Carroll), an octopus/sea witch. She wants to control the undersea kingdom and sees Ariel as her best chance to take power from King Triton. She dispatches two eels, Flotsam and Jetsam (both voiced by Paddi Edwards) to keep tabs on her.

Ursula with her evil eels Flotsam and Jetsam.

Meanwhile, Eric tells his manservant Grimsby (Ben Wright) and his sheepdog Max (Frank Welker) about how fascinated he is by the voice of the woman who saved him and vows to find and marry her.

Prince Eric can't stop thinking about the voice of the woman who saved him.

Triton quizzes Sebastian about Ariel and he tells his king about her love for the human, Eric. Frustrated, Triton does the one thing that will certainly drive his daughter away; he goes to her treasure cave and, using his trident, destroys all the human artifacts she has collected.

Alone and hurt, Ariel is approached by Flotsam and Jetsam, who tell her that Ursula can help her. The deal Ursula proposes is that she’ll give Ariel legs in exchange for Ariel’s lovely voice, which she captures in a nautilus. She gives Ariel three days to get Eric to give her the “kiss of true love”.  If he kisses her before the sunset on the third day, Ariel can remain human. If she fails, Ariel becomes a mermaid again and belongs to Ursula (think prisoner/slave/polyp).

Ariel trades her voice for a pair of human legs.

With human legs, Ariel goes to the surface, accompanied by Flounder and Sebastian. Eric finds Ariel on the beach and takes her back to his castle. Eric is still thinking about the voice and since Ariel can’t talk, she has an uphill fight to win his love. And just when it looks like on day two she’ll succeed, Ursula shape shifts into the beautiful Vanessa (Jodi Benson) and, armed with Ariel’s voice, appears onshore singing. The voice captures Eric and he tells Grimsby that he wants to marry Vanessa the next afternoon.

Ariel goes to the surface, transformed into a human.

Ariel wakes up to the news that Eric is marrying someone else. Scuttle discovers that Vanessa is really Ursula and tells Ariel, who immediately goes to the wedding barge. Sebastian goes to tell Triton, while Scuttle does his best to break up the wedding with the help of other animals. The nautilus shell around Vanessa’s neck gets broken, giving Ariel back her voice and relieving Eric from his enchantment with Vanessa. Eric now realizes it was Ariel who saved him, but before they can kiss the “kiss of true love”, the sun sets.

Vanessa uses Ariel's voice to win Prince Eric's heart.

Ariel transforms back into a mermaid and Ursula reveals her true self and takes Ariel back into the sea as her prisoner. Triton confronts Ursula, but a deal is a deal, that is until Triton offers to take Ariel’s place. Ariel is released as Triton is transformed into a harmless polyp in Ursula’s garden. Ursula declares herself to be ruler over Atlantica. There is a struggle in which Ursula accidentally kills Flotsam and Jetsam.  Enraged, Ursula grows into enormous size.

Triton becomes one of the polyps in Ursula's garden to save Ariel.

 Ursula takes control of the ocean and creates a storm that causes shipwrecks. Just as Ursula tries to kill Ariel, Eric rams her with his ship, driving his bowsprit through her abdomen, killing her. With Ursula dead, her powers are broken. Triton, like all the other polyps, is turned back into their original forms.

Ursula is a formidable foe and takes control of the ocean.

Now seeing how much Ariel loved Eric, Triton turns her back into a human and lets them marry on the ship and they depart.

Ariel leaves everything behind for a happy ending with Eric.

The Little Mermaid was just what the doctor ordered for Disney, becoming the first animated film to earn more than $100 million. The film was Disney’s first animated fairy tale since Sleeping Beauty (1959) and heralded a return to musicals, something that had been de-emphasized during the 1970’s and 80’s. The Little Mermaid ushered in a new golden age of animation for the studio, with subsequent productions being even more successful. The animation division grew from 300 employees in 1988 to 2200 by 1999. The era from The Little Mermaid until Tarzan (1999) is often referred to as the Disney Renaissance, a return for the studio of making successful animated films.

The Little Mermaid has a lot in common with Sleeping Beauty, in that perhaps the most interesting character is the villain. Ursula is in many ways a waterlogged Maleficent. Like her predecessor, Ursula is a shape-shifter (though the expression didn’t exist in 1959) and like Maleficent she can grow into enormous size. And ultimately, she is killed when she is pierced through her torso. Pat Carroll’s portrayal of Ursula is definitely one of the highlights of the movie.

Ursula is reminiscent of an earlier Disney villain, Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty).

Until The Little Mermaid, Carroll was best known for her work on television starting with The Red Buttons Show (1952-1953). She won an Emmy for her work on (Sid) Caesar’s Hour in 1956, was a regular on Danny Thomas’ Make Room For Daddy and appeared as Prunella in the CBS production of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s Cinderella in 1965. While she played some small bits in a few live action films, most of her recent parts have been working with Disney and mostly doing Ursula’s voice. As such she’s appeared in several Direct to Video features including The Little Mermaid II Return to the Sea (2000), Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse (2001), Mickey’s House of Villains (2002) and in the Kingdom Hearts video game series: Kingdom Hearts (2000), Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (2004), Kingdom Hearts II (2005) and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (2012).

The other acting is good, but doesn’t rise to the level of Carroll’s performance. Jodi Benson, who voiced Ariel, also has continued to voice the character in many of the same productions as Carroll and has also voiced the Barbie character in Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010). A versatile voice actress, Benson continues to voice Ariel in the Disney TV series Sofia the First, a 3-D animated spin-off of the Disney Princess franchise.

For a musical, the songs are all right, not great. The film did win for Best Score and “Under the Sea” did win the Academy Award for Best Song, beating out “Kiss the Girl”, also from the movie, for that honor. The other competition was “After All” from Chances Are, “I Love to See You Smile” from Parenthood and “The Girl Who Used to Be Me” from Shirley Valentine. (A virtual dollar if you can hum any other of the nominees not from The Little Mermaid.) “Under the Sea,” like “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King (1994), was unavoidable when the movie was first released as it seemed to play everywhere.

Considering the movie mostly takes place under water, the animation is really very good. With a few physics exceptions aside, like pages of books turning underwater, I kept waiting for a clown fish to swim by asking if anyone had seen his son, Nemo. In order to get that look right, Disney had to use such processes as airbrushing, backlighting, superimposition and some computer animation.

Not all of the work was done at Disney or went according to plan. The drawing of the million or so underwater bubbles was farmed out to a Chinese animation house in Beijing. And an attempt to use the famed Disney multiplane camera for depth of field focus failed because the device had been allowed to fall into disrepair and that work, too, was farmed out to an outside facility.

Overall, The Little Mermaid is a film worth seeing, if for no other reason than to figure out why so many girls were named Ariel. While the film fits under the banner of “family entertainment” this is really more a movie for little girls than for little boys, though enjoyment is not restricted to gender.

Blinx: The Time Sweeper - Is It Worth Your Time?

As many of you may be aware, the Xbox One is out. This is a day I have been looking forward to for a good while, and so in anticipation I acquired my copy of the system early. The system showed a lot of promise, and from what little I have seen of it so far, I am satisfied.

Behold!

Also, the new Xbox One system came out today.

Behold!

But that’s not the One we’re getting into right now.

Behold!

In all seriousness, we are going to dig into a game called Blinx: The Time Sweeper, released for Microsoft’s original Xbox system back in 2002. This is a game I got for my birthday a while ago, long after I came into possession of an original Xbox, making this game my first, and, at the time of this writing, only, original Xbox title. Before getting any further, let’s get into a little personal history with the character of Blinx.

In my childhood, I was well aware of the existence of Blinx, I just didn’t exactly have the system to play the game on; I would not receive my first gaming system, the PlayStation 2, until much later, so the only way I had any gaming experience was through PC/internet games, playing on someone else’s system, or playing in-store demos. Blinx was one game I demoed in a store, like maybe two or three times (which may or may not have included the now defunct Circuit City), but I got some enjoyment out of what little I was able to play, and since then the game had been in my mental wish list of games I wanted to play. I was also aware of the existence of the game’s only sequel, Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space, but only after seeing it on store shelves, and even then I wanted to experience what Blinx was like, even after the character unfortunately faded into obscurity. Now that I was able to do so with the first game, I can say that the game is overall…just okay.

The Time Factory, whose employees are all cats, is a facility that is responsible for making and distributing time across an infinite number of worlds, in the form of Time Crystals. However, Time Glitches may sometimes occur from unused Time Crystals, resulting in the creation of Time Monsters. Should this happen, it is up to the Time Sweepers at the Factory to eliminate the threat. Blinx is but one of these Time Sweepers, minding his own business when it is reported that the Tom-Tom Gang, a gang (whose members are all pigs) who runs a sort of black market on time between worlds, has caused great unbalance in world B1Q64, causing the Time Factory to force all Time Sweepers in that world to evacuate so they can cease the flow of time. However, when the Tom-Tom Gang reveal they have captured the princess of B1Q64, Blinx instantly falls in love, heading towards the Time Portal to that world so that he may rescue her.

Blinx, the titular Time Sweeper.

During the game, you are tasked to defeat a given number of Time Monsters across each level within a 10 minute time limit. Using Blinx’s Sweeper, you can suck up trash scattered within the level, which can be fired at the Monsters. Sometimes you can even run into a member of the Tom-Tom Gang, creating a mini-boss fight as you prevent them from taking gold from within the immediate area. Levels also often feature a number of hazards and doors that can only be opened by stepping on large buttons; these buttons can also activate whatever is needed to continue the level, such as activating moving platforms and creating large jump pads. These mechanics work well to feed into the central platforming aspect of the game; however it wouldn’t really stand out without the ability to control time.

Yes, you have the ability to control time, which seems to come with the job of being a Time Sweeper, with your powers including pausing, rewinding, fast-forwarding, and slowing down time, and even being able to record yourself to aid in solving puzzles. Each of these powers can only be used for a brief period, and some of them are more useful in particular situations, so you have to be careful with how you use them. However, in order to use them, you have to worry about Time Crystals scattered in each level.

You see, in order to be able to use these powers, you need to collect the right number of Time Crystals (3 of any like Crystal + 1 different Crystal give you 1 of that power; 4 of any like Crystal gives you 2 of that power), as well as pay attention to their shape and color (ex. PAUSE Crystals are blue and moon-shaped). On top of this, you can only hold a certain number of total time powers at any time, and going over the limit overrides another power, so you have to be careful. This also extends to RETRYs, which are essentially your lives, represented by red, heart-shaped Crystals, but they are kept in a separate part of the screen away from the time powers. When you die in a level and you have at least one RETRY on you, the game will rewind a few seconds to before you lost a life, allowing you enough time to undo whatever mistake you made. However, if you don’t have any RETRYs when you die, the game ends (this can also happen when your 10 minutes in the level run out).

Pictured: How Time Crystals work.

Adding another layer to the Time Crystals, unused powers and lives carry over into the next level, which can provide a certain tactical advantage for the time powers, but can also create more of a sense of urgency when it comes to your RETRYs, depending on how many you still have.

As an added bonus, there are Time Crystals that appear golden. These, however, are not really Time Crystals, but rather the aforementioned gold, whose value depends on size, but not shape. These will not give you any powers or add to your Crystal count, but will give you currency to spend in the Stores found in each set of levels, where you can upgrade your Sweeper to hold more and bigger items, hold more time powers or RETRYs at a time, or even buy new outfits for Blinx to wear (and of course, Sweepers and outfits are among the more expensive items). You can also purchase additional RETRYs, which may save you some pain in later levels. Levels also feature hidden Cat Medals, which more often than not require you to go above and beyond to nab them, and additional gold can be obtained by having any amount of trash left in your Sweeper (and even then it depends on the type of trash and how much you have).

The gameplay features involving time, while unique and interesting, are not without their drawbacks. The fact that you have to collect the Time Crystals from within the level to use any of your powers can be a bit of a drag at times, since the Crystals, when not placed at predetermined points in the level, are often random drops, which can alter your plans significantly if you are trying to get a specific power. I’ve had it where I was trying to get 2 of a certain power (or RETRYs), but the proximity of the one required Crystal to an unrelated one resulted either in me getting only 1 of that power or a bad combination, which annoyed me a little. As for the rest of the gameplay, while taking down monsters seems fun at first, I eventually became disinterested with the game about halfway through due to the sheer monotony of the whole thing, with little variation outside of visiting the Store for an upgrade or two or facing a Boss, especially since each Stage, or set of levels, is always 3 levels and a boss fight, with a Store unlocked after beating the first level in each Stage. Granted, some of my mistakes that lead to frustration were more a result of human error and I’m aware you can visit previous levels to improve your time, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to keep playing. I might go back to the game in the future, especially since at this point I have no idea what the Cat Medals are even for.

There are, however, some things that I think the game does really well. Though I have literally no other Xbox game at the time of this writing to compare the game’s graphics to, I would still say the graphics actually aren’t too bad for an Xbox game, especially for a game released in 2002, and they seem to hold up fairly well, probably helped by the cartoonish visual style. The character designs actually have a lot of variety to them, mostly when it comes to the Time Monsters, who each have a unique design so you can tell from a distance what kind of monster they are and, based on their color scheme, how hard they would be to take down. The members of the Tom-Tom Gang manage to look distinct from one another (though their names, along with a handful of Time Monster names, only show up in the manual) and, admittedly, Blinx himself looks kind of adorable sometimes.

What I’ve also noticed in my time spent with this game is a little detail regarding Blinx’s animations, specifically falling animations. When Blinx falls from a great height, he will normally land flat on his face without taking damage (unless, of course, in the off chance there is a hazard underneath him). However, if he falls from just the right height, he will move such that he lands safely on his feet. Since real-life cats can actually do this to an extent (please don’t try this at home), this is one small detail that, for me, helped sell me on the fact that he was a cat, since evidently the team working on the game must have done some amount of research on cats. Also, when you hit a wall, Blinx will slowly slide down while attempting to cling onto it, though this action also tends to make him more adorable.

Benito, leader of the Tom-Tom Gang
(according to the manual)

The levels themselves have some good design, but the way some of them are laid out tends to lend more to the difficulty than some of the Time Monsters do (levels with swinging axes present can get more than a little frustrating). While the levels themselves feel long due to how they are laid out, it often feels like you are just ascending further up within an enclosed space, but that doesn’t mean the designers didn’t go wrong when working with limited space. On the other hand, at least one or two levels felt like you had to complete the level in a specific fashion, otherwise you are wasting precious time if you mess up (fortunately, if a Time Monster goes into a currently unreachable space that would require tedious backtracking, it will simply reappear in the more immediate space with damage intact).

The music in this game is also very good, with some very catchy tunes present in each level, the music variety itself depending on Stage and whether it is a Boss fight. The tone of the music nicely compliments the design of each level, making each Stage feel more unique. Then there’s the voice acting, or lack thereof. The characters speak in a nonsense language (with subtitles provided), which makes sense from a practical standpoint as it makes it easier to carry the game over between multiple countries, with prompts and subtitles being the only language change. This also gives the setting more of a unique feel, since neither the Time Factory nor B1Q64 are evident to be related to our Earth in the first place (especially regarding the Time Factory).

In the end, Blinx: The Time Sweeper is a bit of a mixed bag. While some aspects of the game are good, especially in its visuals and sound design, it has some moments of seemingly unnecessary difficulty, especially since more difficult levels can make the 10-minute time limit a bit stricter than in earlier levels. However, despite my feelings on this game, I would encourage anyone who (still) has an original Xbox to play the game for themselves to see what they think of it, especially if they are a fan of platformers. If you do, I would recommend playing it in short bursts, particularly if it starts to feel like a chore. From what I gather, things change a bit for the game’s only sequel, which I hope to get to play at some point in the future.

Stubs – Rafter Romance

Rafter Romance (1933) Starring: Ginger Rogers, Norman Foster, George Sydney. Directed by William A. Seiter. Screenplay by H.W. Hanemann and Sam Mintz. Adapted by Glenn Tryon. Based on the novel Rafter Romance by John Wells. Produced by Merian C. Cooper (Executive Producer). Run Time: 72 minutes. U.S.  Black and White. Romantic Comedy

Sometimes it’s the silliest of reasons that make you want to watch or rewatch a movie, as is the case with Rafter Romance (1933). In Sunset Blvd. (1950) Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson) wants to work with writer Joe Gillis (William Holden), but at the time he’s living the highlife as Norma Desmond’s (Gloria Swanson) kept man. But Joe throws her an idea on a script she’s trying to write about teachers:

                                                                  GILLIS

                                                      (Turning in the open door)

                                               And don't make it too dreary.  How

                                               about this for a situation: she teaches

                                               daytimes.  He teaches at night. Right?

                                               They don't even know each other, but

                                               they share the same room. It's cheaper

                                               that way.  As a matter of fact, they 

                                               sleep in the same bed -- in shifts, 

                                               of course.

                                                                  BETTY

                                               Are you kidding? Because I think it's

                                               good.

                                                                  GILLIS

                                               So do I.

One reason it sounds good is lose the teachers as occupations and add one more bed to the equation and you’ve got the basis for Rafter Romance.

In Sunset Blvd, Gillis comes up with a new plot that sounds an awful lot like Rafter Romance.

The original film starred Ginger Rogers, who only the year before had begun her partnership with Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio (1932). A versatile actress, Rogers had appeared in musicals and comedies since arriving at RKO a few years earlier.

This is a typical studio feature of its day, production began in mid-June and the film was in theaters by September 1, 1933. The film moves along with the same harried pace. At 72 minutes in length, the movie tells the week in the life of two residents at Ye Eckbaum Arms, a tenement house in Greenwich Village, New York.

The proprietor, Max Eckbaum (George Sidney), is a good natured man, but with bills of his own to pay. He has two tenants, Mary Carroll (Ginger Rogers) and Jack Bacon (Norman Foster), both of whom are three months behind in their rent. Mary is a young woman from upstate New York who has come to the big city to find a job. However, by now almost all of her money has been spent. She’s hopeful of employment at the Icy Air Refrigerator Company as a telephone solicitor at $10 a week plus commission. But Max knows she’s so far in the hole that she won’t be able to pay her back rent for quite a while.

Mary Carroll (Ginger Rogers) getting ready in the morning.

Instead of throwing her out, he makes arrangements to move her into the loft upstairs which is currently occupied by Bacon, an aspiring artist who works as a night watchman. Bacon has already turned down money from Elise Peabody Worthington Smythe (Laura Hope Crews), an alcoholic older woman who is infatuated with him. She offers to buy one of his paintings for $300, which Eckbaum overhears. That would be enough money to square Bacon with him, but Bacon refuses. He doesn’t want to be taken care of by Elise. But that leaves Max with the only option of forcing his roommate arrangement.

Jack Bacon (Norman Foster) won't take Elise's (Laura Hope
Crews) hand outs, even they are disguised as an art purchase.

Because of his job, Jack is not home from 8 pm to 8 am; during that time, his new roommate will occupy. Max tells Mary that since she’s gone during the day, her roommate will occupy it from 8 am to 8 pm. And he promises both that they never need to meet the other. While neither likes the idea, it beats homelessness.

Mary does land the job, but when she arrives home, Eckbaum has already moved her things up to the attic and rented out her old apartment. While waiting to occupy the room that evening, Mary sits outside a nearby delicatessen practicing her sales pitch, calling her practice customer Mr. Wharton. Meanwhile, Jack is inside the deli buying a few essentials, like coffee, when he spots Mary ringed by a salami hanging in the window. When he steps outside to meet her and, hearing the name Mr. Wharton, pretends that is his name. Oh, what a coincidence he pretends. Mary is good-looking and Jack flirts with her, unaware that she is his new roommate.

The first time Jack sees Mary she's framed by the salami hanging in the deli's window.

Jack returns to the loft before he has to leave for work and for the first time realizes that he’s sharing it with a woman. Jack berates Eckbaum for his pairing and insults his roommate, characterizing her as a small town spinster with goggle-eyed glasses who came to Greenwich Village looking for romance. Mary overhears him outside the door and runs crying to Eckbaum's wife, Rosie (Ferike Boros), but Max lies and tells her her roommate is excited about sharing.

Jack confronts Eckbaum (George Sidney) about the gender of his roommate.

Upset about her characterization, Mary leaves her roommate a note asking him not to leave his pajamas all over the place. This begins an exchange of written insults and innuendos. He accuses her of using his toothbrush, which she denies, but still on her way out of the apartment, she makes sure that it’s wet like it had been used.

After work, Mary's boss, H. Harrington Hubbell (Robert Benchley), tries to ask her to dinner, telling her that it will be a banquet. Mary though makes it sound like Hubbell is throwing everyone a party, which excites her co-workers, who mob Hubbell for details. Mary then manages to slip away in the confusion.

Again, she waits outside the deli for her timeslot, when Jack comes by. Anxious to impress her, Jack makes up a story about his aunt owning a housing development in Westchester and her interest in buying at least six refrigerator units from Mary. After they enjoy a romantic walk in the park, Jack tells Mary he has to get to a board meeting and rushes off, but not before giving Mary his telephone number at work.

Jack tries to convince Mary that his aunt might buy refrigerators she's sellling.

Mary, with Eckbaum watching, later calls Jack at his job. Pretending to be the company receptionist and then his own secretary, Eckbaum listens to Mary’s spiel. He arranges to meet her the next evening in the park at 6:30. Mary, whom Eckbaum encourages, thinks she’s on the verge of her first big sale.

Eckbaum thinks Mary on the verge of a big sale.

Hubbell though is not over Mary and asks her to dinner that night. She gives him some excuse about having to watch her sister’s sick child and then rushes home. Tonight it is raining and she gets soaked on the way home. Eckbaum, knowing how important this business meeting is to her, makes sure the loft is vacant so she can go shower and change. The roommates have been exchanging notes about the condition of the makeshift shower they share and Jack has written that it’s been fixed. But while she’s showering, the pail with holes in it, which serves as the shower head, falls on her.

Just before the shower head falls on Mary's head.

Mad and bruised, she retaliates by hanging her roommate’s good suit in the shower. When Jack comes home, after Mary has already gone, he starts the shower, before realizing his suit is hanging there. With his suit all wet, he puts on an overcoat over his underwear and runs out in the rain to a nearby tailor’s which advertises pressing your clothes while you wait. Unfortunately, he has to wait in the rain, since the locked shop has a back in fifteen minutes sign on the door.

As Jack waits, so does Mary. With her umbrella turned inside out by wind, she gets more soaked in the storm. Frustrated, she leaves the park and heads back to the overhang next to the Deli. Jack, with his suit still balled up under his overcoat, runs to the park to meet Mary, but he’s too late. He goes to the Deli, but she’s already left, going to Mike’s to get a burger for ten cents and coffee. Fritzie (Guinn Williams), the cab driver, is the only other customer in the place.

Mary gets soaked while waiting for Jack during a rain storm.

The next day, Jack tries to call Mary to explain, but she hangs up on him. And when Hubbell invites her to see the Ziegfeld Follies that night, she accepts. Learning that Hubbell is her boss, Eckbaum lets her have her old room back to impress him. Hubbell pours himself a drink and sizes Mary up against a framed picture of a nude on the wall. He tells her that she has quite a comfortable place, but she insists she does not live there. As they leave, they bump into a drunk (Bert Roach) in the hall. The drunk calls Mary a pet name, even though she doesn’t know him, and proceeds into the apartment. Hubbell gets the idea that she is the man's mistress which only steels him to make a move. Mary, with the help from their taxi driver, Fritzie, who recognizes her, manages to deflect Hubbell's romantic advances on the way to the theater.

Mr. Hubbell (Robert Benchley) is thwarted in his advances on Mary.

Meanwhile, in retaliation for the suit in the shower incident, Jack saws his roommate’s bed in half so that it would come apart when she sits on it. But while he’s doing this, Elise comes for a visit. When she learns that a woman also lives there, she refuses to leave until she sees her. But Jack leaves and runs into Mary, who is not happy to see him. But he convinces her to have dinner with him, and they reconcile over a Chinese meal. Jack confesses to Mary that he’s a night watchman and not an aspiring businessman.

When the bill comes, Jack pays for dinner with the two dollars Mary has left with a note asking her roommate to give the money to Max for dry cleaning. The two even flirt while kicking the wadded note back and forth across the table, with neither knowing its full implications. Jack invites himself along to Mary’s company picnic that Sunday. She tells him to meet her in front of the Icy Air Refrigerator building. With some of the money left over, after tipping the waiter, Jack even buys her flowers. (Two dollars went a long way back in 1933.)

To top off the evening, Jack buys Mary flowers.
Of course, it's with her money as it turns out.

Mary goes home only to discover Elise, asleep, snoring on her bed. The discovery harshes Mary’s mellow. After ejecting Elise from the apartment and removing the box Jack had put to brace the bed when Elise insisted on sitting on it, Mary sits down only to have the bed collapse under her, leading her to tears.

After Jack saws her bed in half, it collapses on her.

When Jack accompanies Mary to a company picnic, they slip away from the group together. While out in a rowboat, they kiss for the first time, but they return too late and miss the bus back to town. But when they run to catch it, Jack falls and sprains his ankle, forcing them to take a taxi back. When they arrive at Jack's home, Mary realizes that Jack is her roommate. When she tries to make bandages from an old dress of hers, Jack lights in on his co-tenant, unaware Mary is the person with whom he has been sharing the attic loft.

The two young lovers slip away during Mary's company picnic.

When Eckbaum finds them together, he berates them for violating their agreement. It is only then that Jack realizes who Mary is and they argue with each other about past events. Elise arrives hoping to take Jack away and gets into a name calling match with Mary. Hubbell, who had been looking for Mary at the picnic, arrives just as Mary leaves. She cries outside and Fritzie, who happens to be there with his taxi, listens to her complain about the "filthy, horrible, despicable" man in her apartment, meaning Jack. But just having seen Hubbell go in, Fritzie rushes upstairs and punches him.

Jack tries to explain things to Mary. Judging by the ending, he succeeds.

Realizing his mistake, Fritzie goes outside and finds Jack in his cab pleading with Mary to forgive him. Mary sounds like she wants none of it. But when Fritzie pulls Jack out of the cab to punch him for hurting Mary, she intercedes and pulls Jack back into the cab with her. No sooner are they together then they start making out. Fritzie, seeing this, gets in to take them to the park.

From their window, the Eckbaum family watches them drive away. When Eckbaum’s son, Julius (Sidney Miller), asks if they’ll get married, the landlord boasts that “I arranged it."

Okay the plot of the movie sounds rather silly. Eckbaum’s plan has a seven day window. The 12 hour shifts works only as long as one has to work days and the other has to work nights. But come Sunday, things would be different, which the film manages to avoid with an office picnic. All that said, the plan is doomed and the film falls apart when it should and our two roommates are now in love. It’s the only possible happy ending resolution available.

It’s interesting to watch a film like this and realize that depictions had to ring true to the audiences of the day, since that was the only audience the filmmakers ever envisioned. Not only do prices seem low [10 cents for a hamburger, 20 cents for wheat cakes (pancakes made of wheat flour), wages were $10 a week, rent was $15 a month], but so were morals. Mr. Hubbell’s overt sexual overtures towards Mary would be the basis for a sexual harassment lawsuit. No telling what he was trying to do in the backseat of that cab.

Even though the movie went out of its way to show there was no sexual relationship between Mary and Jack while they were sharing the attic, an unmarried man and woman sharing an apartment would have been considered at the time to be, as Elise calls it, “living in sin”. Now we don’t necessarily bat an eye when a man and woman share a flat as friends.

But nothing in this movie is played with any real sense of seriousness. These were hard times and audiences weren’t necessarily looking for a reflection of their hardships from the silver screen.

As opposed as to how it seems now, Hollywood studios in the 1930s were in the business to make motion pictures, trying to put out roughly one a week. Since all the majors controlled movie theaters, there were seats to fill and popcorn to sell. People came to the movies out of habit. Quick paced and quickly made films were what made Hollywood famous. It is amazing, in retrospect, that they are generally as good as they are.

And every studio had stars that they both wanted to groom and to exploit. RKO was no exception. The more Ginger Rogers films they could pump out in a year, the better. In fact, this was the 10^th film in 1933 that Ginger Rogers starred or appeared in for RKO, Warner Bros. and Allied Pictures. You can’t make ten films in a year and have them all be winners.

Rafter Romance is one of six films that Merian C. Cooper wrestled away from RKO. In 1946, as a settlement for a dispute with the studio over monies he was due; Cooper was given complete ownership over six films he had produced for RKO. Besides Rafter Romance, there was Double Harness (1933), The Right to Romance (1933), One Man’s Journey (1933), Living on Love (1937) and A Man to Remember (1938). Living on Love is actually a remake of Rafter Romance, starring James Dunn, Whitney Bourne and Joan Woodbury.

Merian C. Cooper. Executive Producer of Rafter Romance.

Cooper withdrew these films, only letting them be shown in 1955-1956 on television in New York City. It wasn’t until TCM purchased rights to them in 2007 that many of these films were seen in over 70 years.

Flawed though it may be, Rafter Romance is still a fun and innocuous film to watch. The plot is certainly not over thought and the film, when available, is worth seeing.