''Girl Without a Room'' is a 1933 American

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...

musical comedy film starring

Charles Farrell Charles David Farrell (August 9, 1900 – May 6, 1990) was an American film actor of the 1920s silent era and into the 1930s, and later a television actor. Farrell is probably best recalled for his onscreen romances with actress Janet Gaynor ...

Charles Ruggles Charles Sherman Ruggles (February 8, 1886 – December 23, 1970) was an American comic character actor. In a career spanning six decades, Ruggles appeared in close to 100 feature films, often in mild-mannered and comic roles. He was also the e ...

, and

Marguerite Churchill Marguerite Churchill (December 26, 1910 – January 9, 2000) was an American stage and film actress whose career lasted 30 years, from 1922 to 1952. She was John Wayne's first leading lady, in '' The Big Trail'' (1930). Early years She was ...

. This early light comedy farce set in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

was written by

Claude Binyon Claude Binyon (October 17, 1905 Chicago, Illinois – February 14, 1978 Glendale, California) was a screenwriter and director. His genres were comedy, musicals, and romances. As a Chicago-based journalist for the ''Examiner'' newspaper, he be ...

, Frank Butler, and

Jack Lait Jack Lait (March 13, 1883 – April 1, 1954) was an American journalist, author and playwright. During a 50-year career he wrote prolifically and became renowned as one of the leading newspapermen of the first half of the 20th century. He is ...

, and directed by

Ralph Murphy Ralph Murphy (May 1, 1895 – February 10, 1967) was an American film and television director. Born in Rockville, Connecticut, Murphy was active in films from 1931 through 1962, with some work in television. From 1941 to 1944 he was married to ...

. As well as featuring some scenes with dialogue rendered in rhyming couplets, the film is notable as an example of Hollywood's attitude to abstract art in the 1930s. The hero is a no-nonsense representational artist from Tennessee, who, transplanted to Paris, meets a crowd of pretentious types in a Montparnasse garret. Chief among them is an artist who believes in depicting the soul of an object rather than the object itself. Played by comic star Charlie Ruggles, his name is "Crock" (one of the meanings of which, ironically, is scam or con, in American vernacular English).

Plot

Cast

as Tom Duncan *

as Vergil Crock *

as Kay Loring *

Gregory Ratoff Gregory Ratoff (born Grigory Vasilyevich Ratner; russian: Григорий Васильевич Ратнер, tr. ; April 20, c. 1893 – December 14, 1960) was a Russian-born American film director, actor and producer. As an actor, he was bes ...

as Serge Alexovich *

Walter Woolf King Walter Woolf King (November 2, 1899 – October 24, 1984) was an American film, television and stage actor and singer. Born in San Francisco, California in 1899, King started singing for a living at a young age and performed mostly in chur ...

as Arthur Copeland * Mischa Auer as Walksky *

Grace Bradley Grace Bradley (September 21, 1913 – September 21, 2010) was an American film actress who was active in Hollywood during the 1930s. Early life Bradley was born in Brooklyn and was an only child. As a child, she took piano lessons and, by the ...

as Nada

External links

* 1933 films American black-and-white films American musical comedy films Films directed by Ralph Murphy 1933 musical comedy films Films set in Paris 1930s English-language films 1930s American films English-language musical comedy films {{musical-comedy-film-stub