I ordered this on Blu Ray having researched Herbert Marshall films after the last one we enjoyed, and boy, it did NOT disappoint. (Which shouldn't really be a surprise, as it's scripted by Preston Sturges and directed by William "Roman Holiday" Wyler (who went on to marry the leading lady, albeit briefly) - but then why isn't it better known?) Marshall is excellent indeed - more antic and in general less suave than usual, he reminded me a bit of Jack Lemmon in fact - but the whole cast is amazing. Perhaps most impressive is Margaret Sullavan, whom we'd seen before because we've seen The Shop Around The Corner, but she is a real revelation in this one. If I had to think of a contemporary analogue for her, it would probably be Amy Adams (Enchanted is one of the movies in Frederick's rotation) in that she manages to be totally innocent and decent and unaffected (and a completely natural performer) without being remotely cloying. And as we first see her character Luisa Ginglebusher (no, really) as an orphan in the Budapest Municipal Orphanage for girls (the movie is based on a play by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár, and does not attempt to relocate it, perhaps because some of the plot points involve the oddities of the Bulgarian political system, and perhaps so they don't have to explain why half the cast sounds American and half English), where she is beloved by the younger girls because she tells engrossing fairy stories to them, which helps them take their minds of the drudgeries they are asked to perform.
This makes it sound as if it's a kind of Annie/Oliver Twist situation, but in fact, the orphanage (or, asylum, as she refers to it later, to the humorous consternation of her interlocutor - again, I wondered if this joke was included in the original Bulgarian and made more sense there) is run by the kindly Dr. Schultz (whose femaleness bemuses the first blustery male character we encounter),
who clearly dotes on the girls even though the place looks very poor and underfunded. Said blustery male arrives to recruit bellhops for his palatial cinema, and is taken by Lu, even though he first encounters her hanging from a light fitting because her ladder has collapsed in the course of an enthusiastic fairy-story-telling.
So she ventures out into the world, ignorant of its ways, and has the job of wearing the personally designed costume ("are the pants tight?" asks the worried Dr. Shultz of the boastful manager "that depends on the girl - all the pants are the same size") and holding an illuminated arrow to direct customers into alternating sides of the cinema.
While here, she meets a man who is to have an outsize influence on her life for reasons that are unclear. He is a waiter called Detlaff, (wonderfully) played by English actor Reginald Owen, probably best known for being the dotty Admiral who sets off cannons in Mary Poppins.
His motivations are unclear, but essentially he takes her under his wing in a purely paternal way, apparently just wanting her to have a good life (a bit sad that I should find this behavior so bizarre). Her first meeting with him is a bit inauspicious, as he seems drunk and she confuses him with her arrow-pointing, and is unable to answer his question as to why he should follow the arrows. They bump into each other inside the theater as Lu gets caught up in the film, which is a hilariously over-the-top melodrama involving a weeping leading lady
pleading with her husband ("Meredith") not to throw her out, while he repeatedly (and I mean repeatedly) responds sternly with a simple "Go!". As we alternate between "Meredith!" and "Go!" we see Lu and Detlaff dissolving into tears, while more heartless patrons either fall asleep or give up and leave. The next meeting is after she leaves work and encounters a lecherous young man (the almost unrecognizable Cesar Romero) loitering outside and escapes him by claiming that Detlaff (whom she spots on the street) is her husband. The young man offered to take her for music, beer and sandwiches, and she responded with horror, but when Detlaff makes the same offer she is ecstatic. (It is while they're eating that we have the aforementioned "asylum" exchange.) Turns out Detlaff works at a hotel, a much classier establishment than the joint he takes Lu to, and (once he has been reassured about the whole asylum business, and returned her utensils) he wants her to experience the high life of a party at said hotel, so he gets her an invitation (and an outfit, because she doesn't really have many clothes). "Aha," you say, "this must be where she meets Herbert Marshall!" WRONG! It's where she meets meat-shipping magnate Konrad, played (wonderfully, again) by Frank "Wizard of Oz" (and he actually makes jokes about being a wizard in this - talk about foreshadowing) Morgan. He falls instantly for her, as does inebriated government minister Dr. Metz - a hilarious Eric Blore -
who delivers possibly my favorite lines in the film, when one of the hotel staff, noticing how drunk he is, offers help managing the stairs down into the main ballroom: "Unhand me varlet, lest I cleave thee to the brisket! Alone I shall navigate yon precipice!" (he then goes on to inveigh against the architects who insist in filling their buildings with these inconveniences), but Konrad is a less drunk and more determined suitor. He manages to chivvy Lu into a private dining room, despite Detlaff's increasingly frantic (and very funny) attempts to separate them, to protect Lu's honor, and although at first she's having a wild time of it
eventually he proposes, and she panics. She instantly resorts to the tried-and-true "I'm married!" defense, but then is startled when he accepts this and says that he will make her husband wealthy if she insists on resisting his largesse. This reminds her of the directive Dr. Shultz gave her as she left the orphanage that she was to do good deeds for others wherever possible, and she decides on the spot to act as the titular Good Fairy for some random man who will be her "husband" and get instantly rich as a result. After some hemming and hawing, under increasingly bemused questioning from Konrad, she decides that he's a lawyer, and while Konrad is temporarily out of the room, she looks through the phone book for a suitable candidate, landing randomly on a Dr. Sporum (whose presumed poverty is confirmed by Detlaff's insistence that the street of his address is in a disreputable part of town). THAT (finally) is Herbert Marshall, whom Konrad meets with the very next day to make him the European counsel for his (South American) meat-packing firm.
Sporum is initially incredulous, then suspicious, but is finally brought round by the wads of cash, and then becomes convinced that his long-time penury-inducing commitment to honesty has finally paid off. He is ordering new furniture when Lu turns up with the intention of explaining everything to him
She finds she cannot, but she also finds him rather amusing and decides to encourage him in his extravagant spending, and takes him out to buy suits and a car (of which he is an enthusiastic driver, although he insists on staying in the middle of the road for safety). She also wears down his resistance and gets him to agree to shave off his beloved beard. While he is in the barber, there's an interlude while she wanders around a department store and happens upon a "real foxine" stole, which she delightedly models (imitating the "Meredith!" actress) in the dressing room mirrors:
Of course, when she sees the newly-shorn Sporum, she falls for him, but her little ruse seems to be about to collapse. She admits to Sporum that she can't have dinner with him because she has to have dinner with a rich gentleman, which he huffily misinterprets, and when Detlaff finds out about this follow-up dinner with Konrad, he decides it's his duty to break it up, and a now-sober Konrad decides he can't go on with his plan of having her as his mistress, and has to marry her, and... it all gets very complicated. Detlaff gives Konrad a black eye, and somehow everyone ends up at Sporum's,
where he's about to find out that it wasn't his honesty or his lawyering skill that got him his money. Will it all work out? Well, she is a Good Fairy...
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