Standing Room Only

Paulette Goddard and Fred MacMurray are faced with "Standing Room Only" in this 1944 film.

Jane Rogers (Goddard) works on an assembly line at a toy factory, but her chattering and inattention lead to her being sent to the head office, ostensibly for dismissal, since this is her third offense.

While there, due to some sneaky work on her part, she finagles a trip to Washington D.C. with with one of the managers, Lee Stevens. He is promised half the firm if he can win an important government contract for the company. Though he's engaged to the boss' daughter, the other women in the firm find him very attractive, and Jane is no exception.

She starts messing up right away. She leaves important papers in the cab; when she gets to the hotel she doesn't like the rooms so she cancels them, leaving both of them without accommodation. Anything set in Washington during the war shows a complete madhouse. After spending a night outside, Jane escorts Lee to their new digs, a private home. She doesn't mention that they've been hired as maid and butler.

Hilarious story with the vivacious, beautiful Goddard and stalwart MacMurray coming up against the randy male of the house (Roland Young) and his major wife (Anne Revere) who has left him to run their home while she's working with paratroopers.

Snappy dialogue and crazy situations abound as well as wonderful performances from all involved. I have to single out Anne Revere here - what an actress she was, playing the mother in National Velvet and this, among many other roles. Though blacklisted, she continued to work on stage until returning to Hollywood.

Goddard and MacMurray were a great combination, he a sort of everyman and the sparkling Goddard, both of whom had were excellent in comedy.

Highly recommended.

Assembly line worker Paulette Goddard is sent up to the office, presumably to be fired by manager Fred MacMurray. However, watching events unfold in the waiting room, Goddard sees her chance and instead announces herself as the substitute secretary assigned to accompany MacMurray to Washington, D.C., on a business trip.

Surprisingly, she pulls it off…at least until she meets MacMurray in Washington and he discovers that she has cancelled their hotel reservations because she thought the rooms were too small. The pair set about finding new lodgings in packed wartime Washington—Fred annoyed, Paulette surprised at the fuss—and the plot goes from there.

There's a very familiar air to much of this story….I'm pretty sure I've seen some of these plot elements before:

• Rising young businessman (MacMurray) is engaged to the boss's daughter but finds himself entangled with charming but ditzy employee (Goddard)

• Stranded pair (Fred and Paulette) pose as married couple and take job as butler-and-cook combo

• Important customer shows up for dinner at the very home where MacMurray is playing butler

So it's not very original…but it's still plenty of fun, mainly because Goddard and MacMurray are so fun to watch in these kinds of roles.

Edward Arnold is also good as MacMurray's imperious but good-natured boss. And Roland Young and Anne Revere are hilarious as the couple who hire on our cook-butler team—Revere is "the Major" while Young spends his days at home vacuuming and trying to find a cook who will stay around.

It's nothing profound but has plenty of laughs.

"Standing Room Only" is not a major motion picture to be sure, but it is a film loaded with fun turns of events, comedic moments, and a cast that propels the program along at a most satisfying pace. The chance of the story unfolding in real life the way it does here is impossible for sure, but if the realist in the viewer can be pardoned for a while, the experience of watching all these acting pros work together is highly rewarding. The facial expressions, nuances of voice tone, and the all important component of timing all serve to make the movie seemingly perfect. What's more, the scoring is unobtrusive, the set direction is well done and beautiful, and the viewers receive a lesson in the vitality of life during the war years. Fans of moviedom's Golden Era will surely enjoy!

I watched this film for two reasons and only two: Fred MacMurray and Paula Goddard - both of whom I adore and always have. It doesn't make any difference what they do, they're always wonderful and an absolute delight to watch. That's what star power is about - you can't keep your eyes off them because there is something almost mystical about how they demand your attention. And to top it off the script was done by Karl Tunberg who just happened to write the screenplay for the remake of Ben-Hur - which ironically lost out in the adapted script category while winning every other nomination it had for a total of eleven wins. Poor Karl. I'll bet he was half-way out of his seat to accept his Oscar when those fateful words were announced: Rome at the Top.

Paramount, again, puts Paulette Goddard and Fred MacMurray together in a spunky comedy about a salesman (MacMurray) and his crazy secretary (Goddard) who have to pose as a butler and maid to get hosuing in overcrowded Washington DC. She gets to be his secretary by a fluke and in her attempts to be one, she only makes things worse. The two stars, at the top of their careers, work well together and are perfectly matched. Fred and his sometimes bumbling personality and Paulette, at her most glamorous, create the chemistry that made stars glimmer back in the days of glamour. Too bad this doesn't exist any longer. Where the personality of the star carrries the sometimes silly plot. This screwball comedy also co-stars Edward Arnold, the big boss, Hillary Brooke, the boss's daughter, Porter Hall, the rival salesman, Roland Young and Anne Revere, the couple that hire the stars as servants, having no idea what they're about to go through. Highlight of the movie is when Arnold and Brooke have dinner with Young and Revere and discover the stars working for them. Well played comedy all round. Look for Marie (The Body) McDonald in the small role of a secretary, salesmen ply gifts to get past the front desk to see the tycoon.