Personal Property is a 1937 Romantic Comedy film directed by W.S. Van Dyke, starring Jean Harlow, Robert Taylor, and Reginald Owen.
Raymond Dabney (Taylor) has just served six months in prison for buying a car on credit and promptly selling it. (Harsh!) His mother welcomes him home, but his father Cosgrove and his brother Claude (Owen), who run a women's underwear business, want him gone. Raymond refuses their offer to pay to send him very, very far away (Canada and Australia are mentioned) and instead heads to London.
In London, Raymond meets Crystal Wetherby (Harlow), a lovely young American widow. She rebuffs his attentions at a club, but unwisely leaves one of her two opera tickets behind for her friend. Raymond takes the ticket and meets Crystal again in her opera box. An indignant Crystal storms out of the box and goes home. Robert, besotted, follows her again... and is met at Crystal's front door by a bailiff, one Herbert Jenkins. It seems that Crystal, who gives the appearance of wealth, is actually flat broke and buried under her late husband's debts. Herbert is there to collect on Crystal's debts by confiscating and selling her personal possessions. Raymond, who wants both a job and an excuse to hang out around Crystal, is hired by Herbert as a sheriff's deputy to make sure Crystal doesn't start smuggling out her stuff. This makes him legally entitled and in fact obligated to stay in Crystal's house.
Meanwhile, the Dabney women's underwear company isn't doing that well. Cosgrove and Claude, as it happens, are desperately looking for capital. They believe they have found the money to keep the company afloat: Claude has gotten engaged to a rich American widow. Namely, Crystal Weatherby.
Adapted from H.M. Harwood's play The Man in Possession, which had previously been filmed in 1931 with Robert Montgomery as Raymond and Irene Purcell as Crystal. Jean Harlow's next-to-last film, made three months before her sudden death while filming Saratoga.
Tropes:
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Claude and Cosgrove have gotten home to find Raymond, released from prison, taking a bath.Cosgrove: Well, Raymond, are you back?
Raymond: No, not yet, I'm expected any minute. - Bathtub Scene: Unusually, with a dude, as Raymond lathers up and takes a bath first thing after getting back home from prison.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: A lot of angry sniping from Crystal to Raymond when he hits on her at the bar and follows her to the opera. Then she gets really angry after calling the police to throw Raymond out of her house, only to find that he's legally entitled to be there. The sparks between Crystal and Raymond fly throughout.
- The Bore: Claude. He goes on and on about selling underwear while Lord Carstairs looks around, desperate to escape.
- Contrived Coincidence: The woman Raymond meets entirely by chance in London happens to be engaged to his brother.
- Follow That Car: Crystal jumps into a taxi after storming out of the opera, only for Raymond to jump into the next one and say "Follow that taxi!".
- Gold Digger: Both parties in the Claude-Crystal relationship, as it turns out. Crystal thinks that Claude is rich and will cover her debts. Claude thinks that Crystal is rich and will give his family's underwear company some much-needed capital.
- Intelligible Unintelligible: Arthur Trevelyan, one of the guests at Crystal's party, "speaks" in a series of unintelligible gibberish throat noises. Raymond is startled by this and even more stunned when everyone else at the party can understand everything Arthur says.Arthur: unintelligible throat noises
Claude: I think so too, provided you buy it in bulk. - Mathematician's Answer: Raymond beat Crystal to the opera, so she opens her box to find him there.Crystal: Will you please tell me what you're doing in this box?
Raymond: Trying to listen to the music. Will you stop talking? - Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Robert Taylor, playing an Englishman, using his bog-standard natural middle-American accent. (Harlow's character is expressly stated to be American.)
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Raymond gives a deeply satisfying dismissal speech to Claude, after Raymond reveals that Crystal is actually broke, and Claude immediately starts wondering how he'll get out of the marriage.Raymond: Well, I could easily tell her a few lies about you. I could say that you only pretended to be well off. That, uh, that you're nothing but a cheap fortune hunter. That you only wanted her money—that you don't have a penny of your own.
Claude: Do you insinuate that Crystal was marrying me for my money?
Raymond: Well, what else would she marry you for? - Sexy Backless Outfit: Crystal wears one during the long section of the film where she meets Raymond at the club, he follows her to the opera, he follows her home, and she fails to have him ejected.
- Verbal Irony: The Dabneys have shown up for Crystal's dinner party, and are surprised to find Raymond working there as the butler under an assumed name. When Mrs. Burns thinks "Ferguson" looks familiar, Raymond's mom cheerfully replies "His face looks familiar to me too."
