ThiefHott Too much of everything

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

utgard14 Frustrated executive (Herbert Marshall) meets an unemployed cook (Jean Arthur). She mistakenly believes he is also out of work so she suggests the two answer a help-wanted ad seeking a live-in maid and butler. Looking for a change of pace he agrees and the two go to work for a colorful character (Leo Carrillo) who turns out to be a gangster. Charming romantic comedy has a fine cast headed by likable Herbert Marshall and lovely Jean Arthur, who I've never seen in a bad performance. Leo Carrillo is a bit much at times but he often was, especially when they let him use accents. It's a good one so catch it if you can.

Errington_92 In this day in age the only audience that would appeal to If You Could Only Cook would be either devoted fans of the two main leads or enjoy the conventions of Screwball Comedy.I belong to the first category, being as Jean Arthur is a firm favourite of mine who is her usual delightful self in this film even if she has been in better efforts. The plot consists of automobile entrepreneur Jim Buchanan (Herbert Marshall) who unsure about his position in life reflects upon his situation. Along the way he bumps into Joan, played by Arthur, who teams up with Jim as a Butler/Cook working partnership. Their pairing works well for dramatic and comedic purposes, bouncing back from one another's lines to create a few laughs and satisfactory acted scenes along the way. However as a romantic pair in which they are eventually placed comes across as mismatched, there is never really such a spark between them even as the narrative brings them together in a far - fetched finale.When the attention was not on Jim and Joan's relationship it was on the pairing of the suspicious Mike Rossini and his associate Flash, played by Leo Carrillo and Lionel Stander respectively. They are the employers of Jim and Joan who serve on them in Mike's home where before long things become conflicted with Flash constantly snooping around the pair and Mike being infatuated with Joan, adding slightly to the film's dynamic. Mostly Mike and Flash are around to provide the laughs with Stander's distinctive voice contributing to the comic delivery of his lines, though he is an acquired taste.Despite the flaws If You Could Only Cook contains, in some ways it is an interesting reminder of the effects of the Great Depression and the film will satisfy those who love the acting abilities of Jean Arthur and/or Herbert Marshall even if the film was not a greatly executed piece of story telling.

Lawson Perhaps they took this movie and improved on it and came up with the classic My Man Godfrey, which was released a year later. Both tell a story of a rich man who pretends to be a butler so as to get close to a woman he's infatuated with. It's the sort of story I love, I have to admit, so I was quite disappointed that this movie wasn't as well-written as Godfrey, and that Herbert Marshall is not nearly as charming as William Powell. It's a bit silly that Jean Arthur's employer (she's a cook), who runs a bootlegging gang, would arrive at Marshall's wedding guns-ablazing to bring him back to her when in the first place he wanted her as his mistress. It's only because I love Jean Arthur that I'm giving this movie a marginal thumbs-up.

bkoganbing If You Could Only Cook had been made over at MGM, Jean Arthur would have had her pick of leading men like Robert Montgomery, William Powell, Robert Young, or Franchot Tone all of who might have been a bit more believable as the auto tycoon who gets tired of his stuffy board of directors and walks out on them. As it was Columbia Harry Cohn got her Herbert Marshall is far better cast in more mature parts like in The Little Foxes or the head of MI5 in The List of Adrian Messenger. He really hasn't the touch for light fare like If You Could Only Cook.That's what happens to Marshall though, he walks out on his board of directors and a week before his wedding to Frieda Inescourt who's from a family with an old name, but no dough. On the park bench he runs into Jean Arthur who is one of the great mass of unemployed. They get to talking about food and Arthur sees in the want ads one for a married couple to be cook and butler on an estate. On a whim as these things are in screwball comedies, Marshall and her agree to pose as husband and wife.What they don't know is that who's hiring them is gangster Leo Carrillo who's particular about his food. Not unusual because if you remember Goodfellas the wise guys in stir were very particular about their food and were rich enough to buy what they want in the joint. Carrillo's number two, Lionel Stander, thinks these two just don't sound right.The rest of the film is the normal antics of mistaken identities and mistaken motives and finding out who really loves who after all. It's not a bad film, but not particularly a memorable one.But If You Could Only Cook attained a status way beyond its own importance in film history by becoming the object of a fraud perpetrated on the foreign markets by Harry Cohn. Seems as though when the film reached Europe, Cohn advertised it in the foreign markets as being a Frank Capra Production. When Capra found out about it, he went ballistic and ultimately his connection with Columbia was severed.The story is described in great detail in Capra's memoirs and the whole saga is a great example of the power those studios had back when they were at their height.In fact that whole story might make a great movie.