Private Number

CinemaSerfJan 2025

3.5

Down on her luck "Ellen" (Loretta Young) arrives at "Winfield Manor" seeking a position. She's completely unqualified, but butler "Wroxton" (Basil Rathbone) takes a bit of a shine to her and so she gets a job anyway. Indeed, fairly swiftly she is the personal maid to the lady of the house - but it's the son "Richard" (Robert Taylor) who really catches her eye, and she his. What can they do though - she's a mere servant and he is from the bluest of New York blood? Well they pretend it's Elizabethan times and marry in secret, but that's not their biggest one of those and when the intensely jealous "Wroxton"" finds out, he proceeds to make things distinctly awkward for the couple and for his family. With the odds stacked against them, and misunderstandings galore going on, it's going to be tough for them to remember that they were/are/might still be in love! It's all a bit predicable as far as the story goes, but there's quite an effective on-screen malevolence from an on-form Rathbone, there's also an amiable chemistry between Young and a Taylor who looks much younger than his actual 25 years, and we've even a tiny slice of courtroom duplicity at the end to round things off. Never mind a woman scorned, worry about the butler...!