User Reviews

The film is just a great escape for the viewer. I love watching Ginger act the part of a spoiled rich movie star-considering she seemed to be very down to earth in her every day life. The costume was so un-movie star like but Ginger shows that she is just more than a pretty face by pulling off that stunt ! She has just a divine comedic touch and this early film of hers illustrates that.

Brent is so-so...he wasn't bad he wasn't fantastic either.

Ginger's co-star and supposed love interest in the film is funny and brings some more hijinks to her vacation.

There is a scene where he is to be involved in an altercation with Brent's character--it's priceless.

I have three fave moments in this film. The first is when Ginger wakes up in the cottage the morning after she gets there ... she sees a bird and decides to take a swim . Something about that scene is so relaxing and carefree.

The second is when she is doing her solo dance scene towards the end of the film. You finally get to see this woman get the limelight doing her own routine instead of sharing it with Astaire ( who was wonderful by the way ).

I can't leave out the third scene which has her dancing to a song on the radio in the cottage living room.

This is a really nice early Ginger movie which all Ginger fans should watch. It is quite a treat.

Thanks Ginger xoxo

George Brent is imported from Warner Brothers to co-star with Ginger Rogers in In Person. Ginger is a movie star who is craving a little peace and quiet away from her adoring public. She gets that, but she also gets psychologist Brent along for the ride. All without her knowing of course. She just thinks of Brent as a he man outdoors type and he pretends he doesn't know she's a big movie star.

Ginger has some good scenes learning how to rough it in the woods, but the film overall is rather silly. The best thing it has going for it are some musical numbers for her in it without Fred Astaire. Alan Mowbray as her leading man and a stuffed shirt to boot stands out in the supporting cast.

Ginger's legion of fans should like this.

Made between TOP HAT and FOLLOW THE FLEET, Ginger Rogers gives a performance far superior to the material of IN PERSON, a comedy/musical with a lame script and three fine songs composed by Oscar Levant and Dorothy Fields, two of them featuring sprightly dances from Ginger. Rogers plays a famous movie actress trying to recover from an attack of agoraphobia. Somehow she winds up at a cabin retreat with George Brent, himself more animated than usual, as he pretends not to know who she is, which apparently is meant to be some sort of a treatment for her mental problem. Most notable is Ginger's disguise, which features the inevitable glasses along with a dark wig and fake teeth. I, at least, found her quite unrecognizable thanks to those teeth, and Ginger does act like an entirely other person in posture and mannerism and even with a subtly different voice. It's a very fine performance.

Unfortunately there's nothing very funny about these scenes. Indeed, other characters treat her quite rudely, reacting to her looks as if she were the Elephant Man or something. Once up at the cabin the plot progresses like a mild I LOVE LUCY episode with the exception of the three musical interludes: 'A New Lease On Life' is a clever, light song accompanied by a clever, cute tap dance, one that might be easily compared with Astaire's 'Needle in a Haystack' routine from THE GAY DIVORCEE. Later Ginger sings 'Don't Mention Love To Me' in a 'movie within a movie' scene, not the sort of number that suited her voice. Finally we get 'Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind' complete with a full male chorus. This one is shot as a film being made on the RKO lot, and the movie will end in Ginger Roger's actual dressing room. The song, dance and setting are much more interesting than the plot twists, silly even by screwball standards and not nearly so funny as the good screwball efforts of the era.

IN PERSON turned a decent profit, probably due to Ginger Rogers' popularity more than anything. It was her first solo billing above the title, and if she wasn't already RKO's most popular star, she soon would be.

If you'd like a decent time passer with a few good moments, then IN PERSON is a pretty good bet. It's highly reminiscent of a later Astaire-Rogers film, CAREFREE, though not nearly as charming. Like CAREFREE, the main theme is psychiatry, though with IN PERSON, Ginger isn't faking a mental illness to get a man, in the story she really did have a nervous breakdown. The film begins after she's apparently cured and how she meets George Brent is one of the strangest and most contrived meetings in film history, as she looks initially like the Elephant Man walking down the street and underneath the hood, she's wearing a ridiculous disguise--all as a part of her treatment(?) for agoraphobia! Apparently, she is playing a famous actress (a big stretch) who is suddenly afraid of people--hence the goofy disguises.

The rest of the film is essentially a "boy meets girl and hates girl but by the end they are in love" sort of film--very, very predictable but also kind of cute in a rather absurd way. Frankly, George Brent and Ginger Rogers were better than this material, but since they are such pleasant personalities, it manages to work--though I agree with Arthur Hausner's review when he describes the film as "forced".

This movie deserves a rating of 7.3, so I gave it a 7. It's really not quite up to an 8. There are so many fun moments, but I won't give them away. Ginger is very good throughout, and so is George Brent. Just when you think you know where it's going, the plot throws in a funny twist. Not always, but often very clever dialogue adds to the fun of seeing Ginger be Ginger without Fred-she gets to dance and sing, etc. We liked the plot and the supporting cast. You may remember Alan Mowbray from many other movies; he is very funny in this movie, more than for instance in "My Man Godfrey," where really anyone could have played the part. Here, Mowbray shows great comic flare. Modern viewers may find it patriarchal at times, but consider how long ago it was made, and also look for the many times the film pulls patriarchy's nose. Highly recommended.

I've always wanted to see this movie, because it contains two extremely obscure and fabulous songs, "Don't Mention Love To Me" and "Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind", written for this film by Oscar Lavant and Dorothy Fields. There's a 1935 Brunswick 78 by Kay Thompson of these two rare tunes, and they're just about as good as any songs of the depression era.

I finally got a VHS of this rather rare movie, and I was floored by how wonderfully mediocre it is. It moves at a fast pace and the acting is just fine. The screenplay is more than a bit silly.

If I have a vote, I would get Warner Bros to include this in a Ginger Rogers DVD collection.

It's absolutely a worthwhile film to watch and own.

I thought this film would be amazing- it sounded good on paper, and was working out well, but after the first thirty minutes it just got predictable, and not in a good way.

I like Ginger Rogers, but she'll never be a favourite of mine- she got VERY annoying after 1944. George Brent is okay, and handsome, it's just that he has no charisma and is a rather unremarkable actor. Perhaps I just wanted to see how well they would mash together- the movies have made some STRANGE odd couples.

The premise of the film was that Ginger Rogers's character, a famous movie star named Carol Corliss, has recently had a nervous breakdown and goes out in public wearing a veil because of how terrified she is that people will recognize her (might be deemed offensive by people who look to be offended by everything).

It seems like it might work better as an A Woman's Face-esque drama, but it was working very well as a comedy. Under that veil, she has a disguise-not a very good one-- Ginger, I'd recognize those eyes anywhere- and a pseudonym.

George Brent runs into her one day in an elevator, and is talked into going on a trip to the wilderness with her so she can recover. Unfortunately, one of her co-stars (and lovers) is also looking for her.

One thing I am always amazed by is the lack of a paparazzi in Golden Age films. There are a lot of films where actors play actors, washed-up as well as stars burning bright, but there never seem to be a crowd of admiring fans unless the movie wants to damage the character's mental well-being despite it being already damaged (à la Sunset Boulevard), feed the ego of said star (à la Torch Song), or just to make a point (satirize).

This film has no adoring fans hounding Carol, apart from in one scene where she goes out in public to see one of her films (To prove to George Brent that she was really Carol Corliss). Besides that, despite her face being on every single magazine, no one seems to know who she is. Like I mentioned above, I'd know those eyes anywhere.

George and Ginger unfortunately have little chemistry. I'd liked to have seen George unmask Ginger right at the end, but within twenty-five minutes, he knew who she was, making the rest of the film VERY awkward. The mistaken identity screwball that could have been was destroyed, and the film settled into a boring boy-hates-girl-but-loves-her-in-the-end sort of film. Blaaaah. Excuse me while I scream in frustration.

AND there was an annoying child actor. Yaaaaaaaay.

I'll give the first twenty-five minutes a solid seven and the rest of of film a rather unremarkable three, splitting into five, which I'll raise to six to be nice.

Always fun to see Ginger dance, though, even without Fred Astaire. She has a dance number where she dances all over the tables and room to a bemused George Brent.

There's also a scene where they play Lovely To Look At on the radio, which is from the Astaire-Rogers film Roberta and was released the same year.

Ginger Rogers plays a popular movie actress (so famous, in fact, that her face is on the cover of every single magazine at the newsstand) who seeks solace and anonymity with a businessman in the mountains while disguised as a wallflower. Rogers, who is convincing incognito on and off for the first twenty minutes, doesn't have much to work with here, although she does get to do a cute tap dance/cooking sequence. Otherwise, this star-vehicle is mighty thin, and co-stars George Brent and Grant Mitchell are both lackluster. Not a bad beginning, but by the midway point it has lost all inspiration. ** from ****

I was delightfully surprised at how fresh this film is! Ginger Rogers shines and sparkles! The songs in this film are also excellent examples of Dorothy Field's work. The songs, with their intelligent lyrics and as-always-wonderful staging of Hermes Pan, more than make up for Ginger's somewhat flat voice (What happened? She's on key with Astaire...) And believe it or not, dull old George Brent even has a twinkle in his eye or maybe even two--not as good as his early 30's work, but the most lively I've seen him in any of his other films. The plot is typical screwball of the times; no worse, no better. Overall this film is well worth seeing for light, cheerful entertainment.

Insecure celebrity Carol Corliss (Ginger Rogers) disguises herself and falls in love with outdoorsman Emory Muir (George Brent).

Made between Top Hat and Follow the Fleet, In Person is a pretty dull romantic comedy musical that squanders the talents of Ginger and George Brent. This plot has been done dozens of others time through the years. Both the stars are good, Alan Mowbray is good in a bit part and Ginger gets a couple of good dance numbers.

If you added Fred Astaire and a couple of Irving Berlin tunes this may have been a good film, but as it is, this is a dud.

The funniest thing about this movie is Ginger Rogers' disguise: buck teeth and glasses, reminding me of Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor (1963). She's a famous actress who got a bad case of agoraphobia when she was mobbed by adoring fans. To get away, she practically invites herself to go with George Brent to a mountain cabin retreat after she overhears that he was going there. Once there the comedy is predictable and routine. You do get to hear Rogers sing three songs and do a neat tap dance, all very enjoyable, but not enough to make up for the flat script.

In spite of everything that's wrong with IN PERSON, I stayed with it till the end, enjoying whatever chemistry there was between GINGER ROGERS and GEORGE BRENT in a very lightweight comedy that suffers from heavy handling and a contrived script. The story has about three places where the ending was in sight and then more material was added to draw out further plot complications. You'll see what I mean if you watch the movie.

Rogers plays a pampered movie star who takes a swift trip to the country to get away from it all, with the help of GEORGE BRENT, who at first thinks she's the plain Jane girl he bumps into in a city elevator. She's wearing a ridiculous disguise and a hat with a veil that completely covers her face. Underneath the veil we discover she's wearing a buck teeth disguise with a black wig and glasses. The plot has her doctors advising her to wear a disguise if she's afraid of being mobbed by fans. Naturally, once she takes off her disguise it's only a matter of time before Brent will be attracted to her.

The screwball elements get even sillier as the plot thickens and the material wears thin long before the film is over.

Worthwhile only for Ginger's fans, who at least get to see her sing and dance in a couple of sequences--although none of the musical moments compare to anything she did with Astaire. In fact, they're staged rather clumsily and the songs are hardly what you'd call memorable. As a compensation, George Brent is a bit livelier than usual in a romantic comedy role.

Summing up: A misfire of a screwball comedy with poor Alan Mobray getting the worst of the deal.

I am going to rate this a little higher than some of the other reviewers. The plot here is less awkward than the creaky plot mechanics of the 1936 Astaire/Rogers "Swing Time" (which, despite the artificiality of the "are cuffs on formal trousers in season?" plot device, is nevertheless a masterpiece). Most fans of musicals would agree that "Swing Time" rates a 10. "In Person" has at least one great song-and-dance number -- "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" with music by legendary Oscar Levant and lyrics by Dorothy Fields (among Fields's hundreds of songs is the Oscar-winning "The Way You Look Tonight" in "Swing Time"). Ginger looks sexily charming even with the fake buck teeth and the glasses. This film is not on the level of "Swing Time," but at least it has a less annoying plot.

RKO bought the rights to "In Person" as the basis for the next Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire musical following the massive 1934 hit "The Gay Divorcee."

In the event, 1935 saw the team produce "Roberta" and "Top Hat," two classics that still stand at the peak of movie history. Ginger brought out another film in between, the all-time essential "Star of Midnight" with William Powell. So it was that by the end of the year, it appeared the studio was facing a write-off with "In Person." But Rogers and producer Pandro Berman saw a way to make money with it - by turning it into a Ginger solo movie. They brought in George Brent, favorite leading man of Ginger's lifelong friend Bette Davis, a fine cast of supporting actors, lined up William Seiter, director of "Roberta" to run the film, and set down to work.

People familiar with Rogers' catalog of films with Astaire can see that "In Person" would not have been a good vehicle for Fred. The George Brent character, Emory Muir, is far too masculine and outdoorsmanlike for the rather petite city-dweller Fred Astaire. Fred was, from first to last, very range-bound in his roles. George Brent's screen presence is much closer to John Wayne or Joel McCrea than to Fred Astaire, and Brent is much the better choice for this role.

On the other hand it is a terrific vehicle for Ginger. She was able to indulge some of her various passions - for disguises, and multiple characters, complex situational comedy, and for the great outdoors, not to mention her amazing quadruple threat acting/singing/comedy/dancing abilities and that famous in-your-face combativeness towards her love interest. Her enthusiasm really jumps off the screen. The film is filled with incongruities; Carol Corliss is traumatized by crowds, yet for the intro she takes off for a supremely confident, extroverted stroll through crowded streets; Emory acts like a complete chauvinist, yet he's perfectly happy to do anything Carol asks of him, even to climbing a tree and waiting for her to call. There are also some belittling points about rural society: the people around the two stars in the city simply shrug knowingly at man and woman taking off for a week in a cabin by the lake, while the rural people are so scandalized that they demand a shotgun wedding. Alan Mowbray: "How charming..." This movie was the only chance Ginger had to play across from George Brent, and they both loved it. Although they tried several times to work on another film, their schedules never lined up. They only worked together one other time, in a 1939 radio version of "She Married Her Boss."

It's clear that the picture didn't get the kind of budget that it would have received if Ginger had been playing across from Astaire; the two dances in the film show this very plainly.

The first, astonishing, dance, which might be called 'Showing Off for Emory,' has a tiny set, in the cabin; there's no way to move the camera back, and the result is a very restricted setting, far too small for the thermonuclear Ginger Rogers at the peak of her powers. Ginger by herself completely overwhelms the set - it would have been impossible to add a dancing Fred Astaire into that tiny space. The scene is only saved from chaos, quite oddly, by the perfect stillness of a thoroughly dumbstruck George Brent. This dance, choreographed by Hermes Pan, is a dazzling romp over chairs, up and down stairs, and the taps are done at a torrid pace. It is one of the greatest dances in film, easily the equal of any of the fast dances that she did with Astaire, but criminally marred by far too small a set and the wrong camera (virtually the only directing blunder that William Seiter made in his five films with Ginger, forced by the small budget).

The second dance, again choreographed by Pan, also shows the limited budget of the film. This time the set is appropriately large, a nightclub in a terrific 'film within the film' scene. It's a more typical Broadway dance, the star fronting a chorus line of male dancers, as seen in films by virtually every major dancing star from Grable and Powell to Monroe and Jane Russell, and this type of dance continued to be seen long after the Golden Age had passed. There are two gimmicks, or 'buttons'; the first has Ginger strolling on a revolving table, the second 'button' has her leading all the men around by a string, or rather a bunch of strings, pulling them around at will. Rogers is stunningly beautiful. It's a fine showpiece, but it's clear that it would have been improved with a bigger budget. Astaire, who starred in front of chorus lines many times (c.f. The finale of "Shall We Dance"), has no place here either.

Still, the whole idea, from a business standpoint of view, was to make the studio's investment pay for itself. And in a typically boneheaded move by RKO, the studio released a Stanwyck movie, "Annie Oakley," on the same day, leaving the two films to compete for the same audience. Nevertheless, "In Person" was a fine success, peaking at #4 and generating about $147,000 in profit.

"In Person" rounded out arguably the largest output of truly great films of any year in history by an actress, three #1 hits and all five films in the top 5 at the box office; two terrific romcoms, "Romance in Manhattan" and "In Person," an all-time great slueth comedy, "Star of Midnight," and two masterpieces of musical film, "Roberta" and "Top Hat." Quite a movie, and quite a year.