First released in 1932 and featuring Cary Grant in his first leading role, Hot Saturday is a film about gossip and love.

Ruth Brock (Nancy Carroll) is a young bank teller living in a small town.  It’s the type of town where everyone knows everyone else.  For instance, everyone knows that every man in town wants to date Ruth but that Ruth, for her part, is not in any hurry to settle down and get married.  She’s having too much fun going to dances, drinking with her friends, and enjoying life.  Everyone knows that playboy Romer Sheffield (Cary Grant) is interested in Ruth but then again, Romer appears to be interested in everyone.  Romer has scandalized the town by allowing a woman named Camille (Rita LaRoy) to live at his mansion.

Ruth has a date with one of her coworkers, Conny Billop (Edward Woods), but, when Conny refuses to take no for an answer, she gets away from him and ends up at Romer’s estate.  Ruth and Romer spend the night together, just talking.  Still, thanks to Conny and Eva (Lillian Bond), the daughter of Ruth’s boss, the whole town is soon convinced that Ruth is Romer’s lover.  The town is so scandalized that Ruth even loses her job.

Fortunately, Bill Fadden (Randolph Scott) has returned to town.  Bill is a geologist.  He grew up in town, with Ruth.  He’s spent the last seven years on a surveying expedition but now he’s back and he wants to marry Ruth.  How lucky is Ruth?  She not only has two good men in love with her but one of them looks like Cary Grant and the other one looks like Randolph Scott!  However, when Bill hears the rumors, will he continue to love her or will he be yet another person who gives in to the curse of small town gossip?

Hot Saturday is a film that truly took me by surprise.  It’s a pre-code film and it’s one that has all of the usual tropes that one usually associates with the pre-code era.  Everyone’s obsessed with sex.  There’s a lot of kissing.  There’s a lot of drinking.  There’s an emphasis on legs and lingerie.  There’s even a scene where Ruth gets into a wrestling match with her younger sister when she discovers that her sister has taken her new panties.  I’m one of four sisters so I could certainly relate but it’s still not the sort of thing that one necessarily expects to find in a film from the 1930s.  But that’s one reason why I love the Pre-Code era.  Allowed to police itself, pre-code Hollywood made films that were more realistic and open about their subject matter than the films made under the production code but which also still had their own unique innocence to them.  Hot Saturday has an ending that would have never been allowed during the Code era, one that is, dare I say it, rather empowering.

But, beyond all that, Hot Saturday is an intelligently written film that strikes a good balance between drama and character-driven comedy.  Nancy Carroll is beautiful and likable in the lead role.  Cary Grant and Randolph Scott are both as handsome and charming as can be.  Hot Saturday is both a look at the reality and dangers of small town gossip and a touching love story.  I enjoyed it.