The Man in Possession

Not to be confused with the 1937 film Personal Property (also based on the Harwood play), whose alternate title is The Man in Possession. The Man in Possession is a 1931 American pre-Code romantic comedy film starring Robert Montgomery, Charlotte Greenwood, Irene Purcell, and C. Aubrey Smith, based on the play of the same name by H. M. Harwood. The black sheep of a family finds himself falling in love with the wealthy woman his brother is seeking to marry. Unusually, this film has no director credit; producer Sam Wood was the director. This film also has a rare screenwriting credit ("additional dialogue") for novelist and short story writer P.G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse worked in Hollywood in 1930 and 1931, and caused a minor furor when he cheerfully (and somewhat amazedly) revealed in an interview how much he was paid for his position as a writer at MGM ($2000/week, at a time when the median US wage was $1400/year), and how little actual work he was required to do.