After Office Hours (1935)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) Oftentimes, a film doesn’t have to be good or original to be fun to watch—simply playing with familiar elements is enough if you happen to be in the mood for that specific genre. So it is that After Office Hours isn’t that special by itself, but it does mix many things that make 1930s films so much fun to watch. Here are a few: Clark Gable playing a suave newspaperman with his usual charm; Constance Benette playing a Manhattan socialite; a plot that sees two amateurs turning sleuths; and dialogue from Herman J. Mankiewicz that combines urbane wittiness with smouldering romantic naughtiness (it’s not quite pre-Code, but often feels like it). None of this is particularly special—you can point at other better films with all of those elements. But that doesn’t make After Office Hours any less fun to watch—and at 72 minutes, it really doesn’t overstay its welcome. After all, it’s not as if they’re making new 1930s movies any more—we might as well enjoy those we have.