Carnival in Paris

This is a most curious short subject with a lot of singing and dancing and merriment. Everyone's having a gay old time at Mardi Gras in Paris and waif Ann Rutherford persuades museum janitor Henry Brandon to join in the fun.

Brandon wants to be an archeologist and the museum gives him a great place to study in the job, That's all I can say except he proves that formal education is not always needed for some folks.

It's all real silly.

Ann Rutherford is starving to death during Carnival. After tripping a baker and stealing some pastries, which she smears on a gendarme, she hides in a museum where some old scholars are arguing about three mummies. She emerges to discover ambitious janitor Henry Brandon.

With the closing down of the independent shorts producers like Hal Roach in the preceding years, MGM, like the other majors, went heavily in shorts production, relying on them as a place to try out rising talent. While series like "Crime Does Not Pay" and Pete Smith's comedy specials were well received, they also produced some overproduced shorts, like this one, making extensive use of their props department.

It's a pleasant effort, mainly due to Miss Rutherford and her chemistry with Mr. Brandon. But it's still weird.

There is a street carnival in Paris. Starving Lisette (Ann Rutherford) steals a cake and is hiding from the police in a museum. The janitor Louis (Henry Brandon) finds her hiding in a box. My main takeaway is that Ann Rutherford looks cute and the only distinguishing factor for any poor person is a few tears in their clothes. This is a musical and comedy. It's very light and mostly harmless.

Carnival in Paris (1937)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Charming short from MGM about a janitor (Henry Brandon) working in an Egytology department who finds a poor girl (Ann Rutherford) hiding from the police. The two strike up a friendship when she asks to get dressed up in some of the museum costumes to have some fun. CARNIVAL IN Paris is pretty much like countless other MGM shorts in that it mixes light comedy with romance and music. Two of those three things work pretty well here but I must admit that I thought the three music numbers were pretty forgettable and I think the film would have been much better without them. The music numbers are pretty bland but the chemistry between Brandon and Rutherford is actually very strong and the two of them make this film worth sitting through. I thought the film had some pretty funny stuff early on dealing with a mummy inside the museum and especially the sequence where the two adults first "hear" one another. The romance is done in a believable way but it's the chemistry that really works. Fans of Rutherford will certainly enjoy her charming performance here.

Watching this short put a big smile on my face. Henry Brandon and Ann Rutherford delight in their roles and look like they are having a grand old time. Add to it a couple of snappy Tunes and some no harm fun and you have an entertaining short of the kind you wish they still made today.