Good Girls Go to
Paris
Director: Alexander
Hall
Year: 1939
Rating: 7.0
Joan
Blondell has four men wanting to marry her by the end of this Depression
screwball gold-digging comedy. And she deserves each one of them. When she
was at Warners, she usually teamed up with Glenda Farrell in their search
for a rich man but she left Warners in 1939 and this was produced by Columbia.
It doesn't seem the same without character actors like Guy Kibbee, Alan Jenkins
and Hugh Herbert and directed by Ray Enright. This could have used some of
those folks as it is definitely lacking in comical character actors. Blondell
has to carry the whole show with some help from Walter Connolly as the rich
old geezer with a greedy family. Melvyn Douglas again feels suitably light
on his feet as the male lead but has no pizzazz. He never does. If you can't
get Cary Grant, ask for Douglas.
He plays a visiting professor of Greek mythology
from London - without an English accent - because Douglas was born in Georgia.
The studio had been trying to get Charles Boyer and Jean Arthur for the two
leads but they both dropped out. Arthur was in her glory days with Mr. Deeds
Goes to Town, Easy Money and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington so I imagine she
thought this wasn't really up to snuff. She would have eaten up the role
though. Screwball was her forte. And Blondell's as well. At the school cafeteria
Douglas meets the smart talking Blondell who is his waitress. They become
buddies with him giving her advice. She tells him her plan. To go to Paris.
How? By getting one of the students with a rich daddy to propose to her and
then be bought off by dad. And go to Paris on that money. Sounds like a plan
to me.
It nearly works but it doesn't and she has
to leave town in a hurry. On the train she meets Tom (Alan Curtis), the grandson
of a zillionaire. After a night on the town she takes him to his house in
a drunken stupor and then lies and whirling confusion lead to the screwball
part. Some of it is quite humorous. Turns out that Tom's sister is engaged
to the Professor. But in love with the butler's son. When the Professor shows
up for the wedding, I would have had to re-think my entire life if it didn't
go exactly as everyone would expect. A sweet big-eyed bauble with Blondell
stealing the show.
Douglas "Isn't it possible for you to tell
the truth?"
Blondell "No, but I wish you would believe
me".
