Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Michael Morrison There is not a whole lot of story or plot, but the cast members are uniformly talented and their characters are generally likable.That plus the production values and the interesting look at England, and especially London, in the early 1930s make "Service for Ladies" a pleasant entertainment.I saw this on Turner Classic Movies and, as I have found with so many English movies on TCM, the sound was rather garbled and hard to understand.Perhaps it's just the age of the film -- I mean, surely it's not the age of the ears.Regardless, "Service for Ladies" is fun, definitely watchable.

bkoganbing Service For Ladies is an early film by producer Alexander Korda in Great Britain before he started his London Film Company. This one was made under the auspices of Paramount Pictures shot over on the other side of the pond and released in America and in the United Kingdom under their white mountain banner.I'm not sure how well it did here because it deals with the European concept of class distinctions. Not that we don't have it here, but in America it usually involves money. Over there it's titles.Leslie Howard plays the head waiter at a posh London night spot where Morton Selten and daughter Elizabeth Allan are dining out. One look at her and he chases her to the continent when he hears she's going to a resort. And she gets it in her head that Howard is some kind of royalty. After all there is a king from some unnamed country vacationing there who knows Howard who is played by George Grossmith. Of course the king's dined at Howard restaurant before.Service For Ladies is kind of a Cinderella story in reverse where the boy is the one who gets the magical evening. Howard plays the role with his usual charm. I'm sure it did well over in Europe, I can't see it having much of a market in Depression America. Still it's a nice dated antique of a film.

ilprofessore-1 Hungarian-born director/producer Sir Alexander Korda was responsible for bringing what had once been the provincial English cinema into world prominence through a series of spectacular pre-World War II films -–among them "Thief of Bagdad," "Rembrandt,""Four Feathers," "Drums," and "The Private Life of Henry VIII." Their exceptional performances and lavish production values were even the envy of the grand Hollywood studios. In later years as head of his own international company, London Films, Korda only produced, but here in this stylish 1931 film made in the early days of sound and on-the-cheap at the Paramount British studios, he chose to direct as well. Ironically, the film stars that quintessential Englishman, London-born Leslie Howard, whose parents were also Hungarian expatriates settled in the UK. Perhaps because the film was written by the two of Korda's fellow countrymen, script by Lajos Biro from a story by Ernest Vajda, there is a naughty continental touch to this film, more Lubitsch and Molnar than British, with suave Howard pursuing or being pursued by two sexy English beauties, Elizabeth Allen and Benita Hume. (The latter was to marry Ronald Coleman and George Sanders.) Keep an eye out for the future Lady Korda, the gorgeous Anglo-Indian actress Merle Oberon, seen here as only an extra.

Neil Doyle Alexander Korda was certainly a very fine producer of British films, but SERVICE FOR LADIES is a very dated British comedy of manners playing up the class distinction that prevents commoners from associating with those higher up on the social ladder.Furthermore, the print shown on TCM looked faded and slightly blurry which made the film seem even more of an antique. The script is the sort where mistaken identity is played for whatever laughs it can get--and very few laughs make for a deadly dull comedy.LESLIE HOWARD, who usually has such a flair for romantic comedy, has to carry the film with very little help from ELIZABETH ALLAN and BENITA HUME as two women he fancies. The script doesn't give them enough to work with so the performances are undistinguished, to say the least.Howard was seen to much better advantage in his American films, particularly IT'S LOVE I'M AFTER ('37), a romantic comedy in which his skill at playing comedy was overwhelmingly evident.You won't get that impression here.