The Goose and the Gander directed by Alfred E. Green (starring Kay Francis, George Brent)

The Goose and the Gander (1935).
Story and screenplay by Charles Kenyon.

Kay Francis stars as Georgiana in The Goose and the Gander, a surprisingly racy (given that it was released during the enforcement of the Hays Code) bedroom farce from 1935. Georgiana runs into her ex-husband Ralph Summers (Ralph Forbes), whose current wife Betty (Genevieve Tobin) Georgiana has just seen making plans with her paramour, Bob (George Brent). In order to show Ralph the kind of woman he left her for, Georgiana schemes to get everyone together at her lodge under false pretenses, so Ralph can discover Betty with Bob.

Ralph agrees because he wants to be alone with Georgiana — remember, what's good for the goose is good for the gander — but things get more complicated when a pair of jewel thieves (John Eldredge and Claire Dodd) steal Betty's car and are sent to the lodge by mistake, whereupon they pose as "Ralph and Betty Summers."

Confused yet? Well, eventually the police show up and get everything all mixed up. Georgiana figures things out pretty quickly, though, and deviously plays along to the hilarious discomfort (O, joyous schadenfreude!) of the others. Meanwhile, she takes the opportunity to put the moves on Bob, to his reciprocal glee, but to Betty's chagrin. But it is a comedy, remember, so most everyone ends up happy in the end (even if it doesn't always quite fit with their characters' preceding actions).

The beautiful and charming Kay Francis, an actress with a vast filmography of which little is available on video, is truly the star here. She is in her element playing a member of polite society with amusingly intentions. She is so in control of all the actions on the screen that the other characters seem to be acting merely as her puppets.

The acting is solid all around, with the simple direction of Alfred E. Green serving Charles Kenyon's script quite well. At just over an hour, The Goose and the Gander is the ideal length for an afternoon's diversion, and a fine example of the kind of sophisticated comedy in which Hollywood specialized in the 1930s. It's also only one of several films Francis made with Brent, so if this pairing was enjoyable, there are more to seek.