Bed of Roses

Directed by Gregory LaCava, Bed of Roses follows Constance Bennett’s Lorry Evans as she blackmails a publishing magnate (John Halliday’s Stephen) into providing her a fully-furnished apartment – with complications ensuing after Lorry meets and finds herself falling for a cotton-barge skipper (Joel McCrea’s Dan). It’s agreeable subject matter that is, at the outset, employed to distressingly underwhelming and uninvolving effect by LaCava, as the filmmaker, armed with a screenplay written alongside Wanda Tuchock and Eugene Thackrey, delivers a sluggish, one-note drama that contains few attributes and elements worth wholeheartedly embracing – with the only real exception to this Pert Kelton’s scene-stealing turn as Lorry’s sassy, Mae West-like best friend. There’s little doubt, then, that Bed of Roses improves significantly as it progresses into a second half focused on the appealing love triangle between Lorry, Stephen, and Dan, which ensures that, by the time the satisfying closing stretch rolls around, the picture ultimately comes off as a decent-enough endeavor that does feel a little long even at just 70 minutes.

**1/2 out of ****