US, directed by Allan Dwan
Starring Edmund Lowe and Claire Trevor
Two second-class passengers, a professional gambler (Edmund Lowe) and a woman (Clair Trevor) longing for the amenities in first class, meet cute in an ocean liner cocktail lounge. When they befriend a young man who’s in a jam (blackmailed by a beautiful jewel thief and in debt to a couple of pompous windbags), they decide to use their own skills as con artist and actress to set things right. Of course, they fall in love a long the way. Oh, and it turns out the boy is Lowe’s son. (Yeah, right, but it’s plausible enough.)
For witty repartee and screen chemistry, Lowe and Trevor are just a few notches below the caliber of Nick and Nora Charles (from The Thin Man movies) and you can’t beat a 1930s Hollywood film set on a cross-Atlantic cruise ship.[***1/2]
