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The mélange of American snap and continental polish is at once announced in the gold-digger's introductory view of Paris: "From here it looks an awful lot like a rainy night in Kokomo, Indiana." In from Monte Carlo with only a lamé gown to show for it, the chorine (Claudette Colbert) crashes a concert posing as a Hungarian baroness, borrowing the surname of the cabbie she's just met (Don Ameche). "Chopin seasoned with a pinch of Arsène Lupin" according to the moneybags (John Barrymore), who hires the fetching impostor to charm a gigolo (Francis Lederer) away from his wife (Mary Astor). The extramarital triangle among the swells tickles her mercenary side, "you don't just fall into a tub of butter, you jump for it," a weekend gathering at the Versailles chateau clinches the concurrence with La Règle du jeu. "Nice little bungalow you've got here. I wish I'd brought my roller skates." The Mitchell Leisen gloss on the acerbicity of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, a glittering formulation. (Rex O'Malley as the resident bon vivant has alternate titles for it, "The Secret of the Pink Pawn Ticket or The Case of the Mysterious Baroness.") Cinderella incognito, a taxi motorcade to the rescue, cf. Borzage's The Big City. A trip to the boutique gives a glimpse of a De Chirico mural, plus the latest hat craze ("Get me the one with the stuff on it that looks like spinach"). Waltzing pairs become a conga line at the ritzy soiree, just the arena for Barrymore's gleam of debauched mischief to flash again. All's sorted out at the courtroom, where the judge (Monty Woolley) situates the shenanigans in "a time of vast world unrest." The clock strikes for the heroine as well as for suave Thirties comedy, the decade up ahead belongs to Sturges and his brassy recomposition (The Palm Beach Story). Cinematography by Charles Lang. With Elaine Barrie, Hedda Hopper, Armand Kaliz, Eddy Conrad, and Gino Corrado. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |