Love On Toast (1937)

Stars:

John Payne, Stella Adler, Grant Richards

Love on Toast was one of several mid-1930s Hollywood films helmed by E. A. DuPont, a once-celebrated German filmmaker then on the skids. The plot concerns a female press agent who must select a "Mr. Manhattan" and "Miss Brooklyn" for an ad campaign mounted by a soup company. The Mr. Manhattan chosen is a singing soda jerk, who doesn't want to play along until he is given the honor of choosing his own Miss Brooklyn. He picks a brash radio songstress, who ends up causing all sorts of trouble at a banquet thrown in her honor -- but who cares now that Mr. Manhattan has fallen in love with the pretty press agent. John Payne, who'd emerged as a singing star the year before, is the hero; radio soubrette "Sugar" Kane (that was her billing!) is the troublesome gal from Brooklyn; and the press agent who sets the plot in motion is a movie newcomer named Stella Ardler, who under her given name of Stella Adler later established herself as one of America's foremost acting coaches.