I only know Claudette Colbert from It Happened One Night (I tell a lie - there's also The Palm Beach Story, of course), and Ameche (who had a comeback in my lifetime in Cocoon) from Heaven Can Wait, and I can't say either one knocked my socks off in this one, but it's a very enjoyable little early Billy Wilder-penned screwball comedy. (It also features John Barrymore, already looking much older than he did in Grand Hotel, probably because his heavy drinking would kill him 3 years later, and Mary Astor, who I find slightly less annoying in this than in The Maltese Falcon, perhaps because she's not supposed to be particularly alluring here.)
The film opens with a train pulling into Paris with Colbert's Eve Peabody asleep in a carriage in a silvery dress. The porter wakes her up and asks her if he can get her bags, and she says something to the effect of "I would love that." Confused, he asks where they are, and she replies, as she hurries off into the rain "in a pawn shop in Monte Carlo". We later learn that she had been in England (she's American) trying to marry a rich Duke or something and had managed to snag one until his horrified mother pulled her aside and paid her off. She then hotfooted it to Monte Carlo in an attempt to spin that sizeable lump sum into enough to retire on, but instead lost everything. So she's come to Paris to try to make a living. She walks out of the station past the taxi ranks and is swarmed by taxi drivers but makes it clear she's not interested. When pressed by one driver in particular (Don Ameche's Tibor Czerny, looking like a knockoff Errol Flynn) she admits she has no money and bats her eyes at him and asks if he'll drive her around nightclubs until one hires her, at which point she will pay him back. He makes it appear that he might agree before pulling out the rug from under her with a contemptuous "No!" - just the first salvo of a contentious movie-long back-and-forth. Of course he caves when he sees her buying a newspaper with what he knows is her last few centimes just to use as an umbrella. But he gets increasingly short-tempered as club after club rejects her, and she admits that she just has a "voice for the bathtub". Of course, he is also falling for her, and after a scene where he takes her out to a little restaurant frequented by other cab drivers
(who all want to dance with her until Tibor bribes someone to walk in and ask loudly for a taxi) he offers her his apartment key so she has somewhere (other than back at the station) to sleep while he drives around to make up the money he's lost running her around. She refuses, because she can tell she might fall for him, and she can't face a future of penury, and does a runner while he is distracted refueling the cab. She ducks into a fancy party, using the ticket she got from pawning her luggage in place of a real ticket (you just know that luggage is going to feature later in the film, don't you?), something that is discovered halfway through a Chopin concert paid for by a rich socialite. Meanwhile, John Barrymore's Georges Flammarion, sitting next to her, has sussed her out.
She thinks she's been caught when a rather camp individual called Marcel insists that she come with him, but it turns out he's just bored with the music and mistakes her shiftiness and discomfort for a sign that she is too, and invites her into a bridge game with Mary Astor (Georges' wife Helene) and the implausibly beautiful Jacques (played by the Czech actor Francis Lederer, who was well on the way to becoming the next Valentino before the advent of sound (but don't feel sorry for him - he became a real estate magnate), with whom Helene is conducting a rather blatant affair, but who is instantly smitten by Eve (and who, rather implausibly for a lothario, is a big pipe smoker).
Meanwhile, since the name of Eve Peabody has been announced as an interloper, Eve has to invent a new name, and becomes Baroness Czerny, Hungarian (what was it with Hungarians and 30's Hollywood?) royalty. Georges saunters in and sneaks a peak at Eve's pocketbook to confirm his suspicions, and also to stuff money in, so that when time comes to pay her considerable Bridge debts, she is amazed to find she can. She is also amazed to discover that, when Jacques insists on coming into the Ritz (where she has claimed to have a room) to escort her to her door, there actually is a room in her name. Of course, this is all Georges' doing, as he reveals the next day. And not, as Eve originally thinks, because he has the hots for her, but because he wants her to lure Jacques (a minor champagne heir, so the kind of man Eve has long sort to land) away from his own wife, whom he still loves. And it looks like the scheme has a good chance, because a huge bouquet of flowers arrives from Jacques just as Georges is leaving, leading to the following vintage Billy Wilder dialogue, delivered perfectly by Barrymore:
MEANWHILE, the real Mr. Czerny has enlisted all the cabbies of Paris to each chip in 5 francs to a pot that whomever of them finds Eve will win. And eventually, Eve is spotted, and the cabbie who finds her also discovers that she is going under Tibor's name. By this point Georges has invited her down to his country estate, but Helene has also heard from the rich socialite that she is being sued by the person whom she thought was Eve, and whom she had thrown out of her party, but who turned out really to be the fancy noblewoman she claimed, and very much suspects Eve of being Eve. And (finally) she and Marcel use the ticket to track down Eve's luggage! But just as Helene is about to denounce Eve at a party (which Eve is suspecting, because Georges has evesdropped on his wife and Marcel),
Baron Czerny is announced! And Georges goes up and welcomes him! And of course, it's Tibor, who has tracked Eve down.
The rest of the movie (which is the best part) consists of Eve and Tibor battling (Tibor thinks they can be happy together, Eve, while drawn to him, desperately wants to avoid the fate of her parents, whom poverty drove apart) while Eve has one eye on Jacques and Georges is prepared to do anything to maintain the illusion, but at the same time break up Tibor and Eve because he wants Eve and Jacques to go off together. The best scene is where Tibor tries to get Eve to come away because he reveals a telegram from "their" young daughter Francine, who is sick from the measles. She wriggles out of it by staging a call from Hungary where Tibor's mother reveals she has recovered, and calls Tibor to the phone whereby Georges (in the other room), in a baby voice, tells him "she's" fine.
Then, when Eve realizes Tibor (who has stormed off to his room to change) is going to go for broke and reveal everything, she undercuts him by telling everyone that there is madness in the family, and that while he is lovely most of the time, sometimes he believes he has a daughter, and sometimes he believes he's a cab driver. Eventually Tibor is reduced to demanding that, if she wants to marry Jacques, she better divorce him first. This leads to a final scene in a divorce court, presided over by the wonderful Monty Woolley, where everything is resolved nicely. All in all, very satisfying, but I have to say I worry that Eve is right. Those two are too hot-tempered to last, especially on his cabbie's salary. I only hope that Georges sets them up, having, at the end, got what he wanted. Looking back on it, I think I liked Colbert better than I thought, but Barrymore certainly steals the film (at least, until Woolley comes along).
No comments:
Post a Comment