User:Collinbivins/He Stayed for Breakfast

In the 1940 film, He Stayed for Breakfast, directed by Alexander Hall, Loretta Young plays a banker's alienated wife alongside Melvyn Douglas. Based on the stage play, Ode to Liberty.

Plot
The plot follows a banker’s wife, Marianne (Loretta Young), who lives in Paris and meets a Communist man who’s attempting to lay low in her apartment to avoid persecution from the law. Interested in the man, she lets him take refuge in her apartment. Marianne soon finds out that this man, Paul (Melvyn Douglas) attempted to assassinate her banker husband, Maurice (Eugene Pallette). Paul becomes trapped in the apartment due to guards surrounding the building. Paul and Marianne slowly fall in love as the film goes on. Their newfound love becomes endangered when Paul is asked to surrender himself by the Communist party he is involved with, but knowing blame would be placed on Marianne, he refuses. Paul is then shortly after discovered by Marianne's husband who turns him over to the police. To have the charges dropped, Marianne agrees to stay with her husband, but this doesn’t last long as Marianne, annoyed by her husband, flees to Paul's where they then head for America. At the time, Communism was a very controversial topic, and this film delved deep into the thick of it. This film was a comedy which was an increasingly popular genre at the time. However, it was also a political drama which made this film less of a success at its release.

Reception
He Stayed for Breakfast received less than great reviews at the time of its release receiving mediocre reviews from publications like Variety and Los Angeles Times

"Lacking a sustained pace, and with several slow spots that might have been lifted by better direction, picture will roll through the key spots as bill topper for moderately satisfactory biz."

"With most of the action confined to the apartment, picture has its weak moments with series of repetitious happenings that might not be so apparent with better direction that would have smacked over toppers to the gags and situations at hand. These rather dull passages prove a burden to the bright and sparkling comedy that is liberally sprinkled throughout, and prevent the picture from reaching the laugh hit class."

"It may lack the ideal smoothness of the Ernst Lubitsch production as a comedy: but its hilarities are immense."