Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

atlasmb Ginger Rogers arrived at RKO Studios in April 1933 after they had signed her to a three-picture deal. Her first film there was "Professional Sweetheart". The director was William Seiter and her leading man was Norman Foster. Ginger said Seiter had a tremendous sense of humor and was a joy to work with. She had flirted with Foster in her first film at Paramouht.After "Don't Bet on Love" and "A Shriek in the Night", Ginger's contract was picked up for another year, she was presented with the script for "Rafter Romance", to be directed by her old friend Bill Seiter and starring Norman Foster. She said it was like "old-home week again". This "B" picture was filmed just months before the big break of her career. In September, she would start filming "Flying Down to Rio", in which she would dance with Fred Astaire, effectively changing the arc of her career and her life."Rafter Romance" is a typical big-city story about young adults trying to make ends meet during the difficult economy. Mary (Ginger Rogers) and Jack (Norman Foster) are tenants in the same apartment building. When they can't pay their rents, the landlord, Mr. Eckbaum (George Sidney) ingeniously realizes they could share the same apartment since one works day hours and the other works the night shift.It's a somewhat racy premise for its time, but the film was made in the pre-Code era--that brief but glorious period when studios were allowed freer expression. Accordingly, the film includes some suggestions of nudity and impropriety that were typical of pre-Code films.The film lasts a mere 73 minutes and the story is not demanding, but the actors acquit themselves well. No doubt they enjoyed the filming, having a natural chemistry. The Eckbaum family provides a warm, but humorous, backdrop for the action. In one scene, the Eckbaum son-who always seems to be hanging around--is drawing swastikas in chalk on the wall near the lobby phone. In 1933, the Nazis would have figured prominently in world news. Their eye-catching symbol was, no doubt, fascinating to youngsters, so it makes sense that he might scribble it as graffiti. Before long, the menace of Nazism would become more apparent.

vert001 I first saw RAFTER ROMANCE a few years ago as a break from all the Akira Kurosawa films I'd been watching on TCM. In a rather odd coupling, Turner Classic Movies had decided to play all of the Japanese director's films during its Ginger Rogers Month, and all the promos I'd been seeing about Ginger finally made me decide to take a break from the next modern day Japanese version of HAMLET or KING LEAR or MACBETH (or Gorky's THE LOWER DEPTHS for that matter). Something called RAFTER ROMANCE seemed like it would be quite a contrast. It was, and it was a lot of fun, too.Instead of going over the plot again, I'll mention two scenes. The swastika incident has inspired some comment. The swastika had long been a good luck symbol in much of the world, including among the Hindus as well as the aboriginal American Indians. Clearly the boy is using it as such in the scene in RAFTER ROMANCE. It's not surprising that an adolescent wouldn't have been keeping up with the contemporary political developments in Europe. His father, however, judging by his accent, must have originally come from the Old World, and it's not unlikely that he would have been familiar with recent European events. Thus the landlord associated the swastika with the Nazis and was unhappy to see it on the walls of his apartments, a reaction that his son did not immediately understand. It seems to me to be a sly political commentary, surely the only one that we see in the charming romcom RAFTER ROMANCE.True the plot about two people sharing an apartment without ever meeting one another doesn't make any sense (what happens on weekends or holidays?), but how many airtight plots do we ever come across? RAFTER ROMANCE moves quickly, contains likable characters, has some genuinely funny scenes (anything featuring Laura Hope Crews, anything featuring the telemarketing office, Ginger's 'date' with Robert Benchley), a few that aren't so funny but nothing that is notably awful, and a pair of leads (Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster) who fit easily together in what is their third and last movie as co-stars. Though there's considerable talent all around her, it's Rogers who holds it all together, and RKO must have been very pleased in seeing what they had in her.Though it's a small, simple picture, RAFTER ROMANCE does supply some surprises. Did you know there were telemarketing companies in 1933? I sure didn't. Neither their spiel nor the reactions to their cold calling seems to have changed much. But most surprising was that shower scene, or I should say the prelude to it. When Ginger slipped off the jacket of that business suit she was wearing my jaw dropped at the sight of her bare back! I mean, no blouse underneath, only a silk scarf crossing over her breasts? Somehow I doubt that was a common costume for the well-dressed office girl of 1933, but I guess that's why they call them pre-Code!

mkilmer Ginger Rogers was a first rate actress, and one of the funniest when she wanted to be. This film has her renting an apartment and having trouble with her rent. Her boss (Robert Benchley) is a sexist pig who demands a date. Several times.Money forces her landlord to make her share her attic apartment with a painter (Norman Foster) – he gets days, she gets nights – and the two build certain assumptions about each other and dislike each other, sight unseen.Sight seen, though they don't know they're sharing an apartment, they fall in love.Laura Hope Crews is funny as the drunken woman of means who is constantly trying to seduce Foster, and George Sidney is delightful as the landlord.Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams puts in an appearance as the protective cabbie.All in all, a delightful film. Good plot, delightful acting, and – pre Hayes code – we get a glimpse of Miss Roger's legs. I'm sorry, but for all her splendid talent, we must not forget the God-given asset which carried her through so many later films with Freddy Astaire.

Neil Doyle There's a feeling of deja vu to the plot of RAFTER ROMANCE about two people who aren't aware of each other's identity until they fall in love, but in 1933 it must have seemed quite an original idea.At any rate, it gives GINGER ROGERS and NORMAN FOSTER a nice chance to show what they could do with light comedy and tender romance. They play two roommates who work different shifts but who eventually meet and fall in love. (Shades of YOU'VE GOT MAIL and other such stories). And oddly enough, ROBERT BENCHLEY would be making a play for Ginger as a lecherous wolf, just as he would some ten years later in THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR when he suggested she slip into something more comfortable.After a series of pranks and misunderstandings, Foster and Rogers find each other at the company picnic and promptly fall in love.Watch for LAURA HOPE CREWS (Aunt Pittypat of GWTW) as a woman who wants to "keep" Norman Foster--and GUINN WILLIAMS as a brawny taxicab driver.Summing up: Good fun with an early look at Ginger.