Standing Room Only

Assembly line worker Paulette Goddard is sent up to the office, presumably to be fired by manager Fred MacMurray. However, watching events unfold in the waiting room, Goddard sees her chance and instead announces herself as the substitute secretary assigned to accompany MacMurray to Washington, D.C., on a business trip.

Surprisingly, she pulls it off…at least until she meets MacMurray in Washington and he discovers that she has cancelled their hotel reservations because she thought the rooms were too small. The pair set about finding new lodgings in packed wartime Washington—Fred annoyed, Paulette surprised at the fuss—and the plot goes from there.

There's a very familiar air to much of this story….I'm pretty sure I've seen some of these plot elements before:

• Rising young businessman (MacMurray) is engaged to the boss's daughter but finds himself entangled with charming but ditzy employee (Goddard)

• Stranded pair (Fred and Paulette) pose as married couple and take job as butler-and-cook combo

• Important customer shows up for dinner at the very home where MacMurray is playing butler

So it's not very original…but it's still plenty of fun, mainly because Goddard and MacMurray are so fun to watch in these kinds of roles.

Edward Arnold is also good as MacMurray's imperious but good-natured boss. And Roland Young and Anne Revere are hilarious as the couple who hire on our cook-butler team—Revere is "the Major" while Young spends his days at home vacuuming and trying to find a cook who will stay around.

It's nothing profound but has plenty of laughs.