Folies Bergere de Paris
                                                                       
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Year: 1935
Rating: 6.5
This film only runs about 80 minutes but is a delightful piece of fluff that never loses its impish charm. There aren't many films that I wish were longer but this should have added another ten minutes of identity confusion for laughs. First though a few things I scooped out of Wikipedia. This was to be Maurice Chevalier's last film in Hollywood for over 20-years. He was a huge star when he said enough and moved back to France. His musicals with Lubitsch had been enormously popular. Hollywood kept bringing over charming Europeans with accents to replace him but none of them succeeded as he did. He didn't return until he was a much older man and no longer could play the romantic lead. But instead. he came back to play the father of Audrey Hepburn in Love in the Afternoon. Shot in Paris. Love in the Afternoon was maligned even back then because of the age difference between Gary Cooper and Hepburn and in the age of political correctness it is even more defamed. It has its fans though. Anything with Hepburn in it is gold for me. Cooper was younger than me at the time, so what can I say.



The film is based on a book from German author Rudolph Lothar and the producer Fox also made one for the French market at the same time. But the plan was for all the chorus girls going topless. Whoopee. In France that was ok. But Big Brother Joseph Breen said no, not even if it was meant for a country out of his jurisdiction. This film has the Breen morality laws all over it. It flirts and winks at sexual affairs but stays as innocent as a carton of fresh milk. There were two later versions made by Fox - That Night in Rio and On the Riviera but those two also came out during the Breen years. Not that you really want any of our lovable characters cheating on their significant others - that would have spoiled the screwball mood of the film.



Chevalier plays two roles here. One is a musical comedian at the famous Folies Bergere where he sings and dances - there are seven songs - two of them much influenced by Busby. That still leaves about 60-minutes for the plot. His girlfriend is the insanely jealous Ann Sothern who also sings a couple of songs. Chevalier also plays a wealthy Count who is married to Merle Oberon. Can I just pause for a moment and ask where has Merle Oberon been all my life? I am sure I have seen her in a few films but she has never looked as lovely as she does here. She radiates a quiet passion. Director Roy Del Ruth and his assistants light her up perfectly and her make-up brings out her lustrous dark eyes to heart-beating effect. Oberon had to keep her birth a secret for all her life. She was born in Bombay and of mixed ancestry. Her mother was 12-years old when she had Merle. Not the sort of thing you made public back in the 1930s. But it helps explain those eyes.



The film is flimsy and fun. The Count runs into financial troubles and has to go off to London. But he and his wife are throwing a reception that night and his absence needs to be covered up, so his friends get the other Chevalier to impersonate him - it is part of his theatrical act - for the party. He and the wife have chemistry - as did the Count when he met Sothern earlier in the film - for an innocent comedy there is some steam thrown off here. It never quite reaches the height of absurdity that it could have but it is as light as a souffle. All three actors are just fine. And let's not forget Eric Blore as the sensitive butler. I love Blore.