That Girl from Paris

Don't be put off by other negative critiques. Forget that Lily Pons was a highly regarded opera singer, or that somehow she condescended to appear in a movie. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Pons was offered a great deal of money by RKO to make the three movies she made.

She gives a fine performance both acting and singing. The plot is typical 1930s fare, and I thought it amusing and better than average. I find Pons's characterization very charming.

As for Pons being tall and willowy, the lady was a petite 5 feet tall (see IMDb bio), but she sure had a superior voice in that little body. The "pop" tunes she was given to sing in this film were written with an operatic voice in mind, requiring a large range to sing.

No other mention has been given to Lucille Ball's very, very funny comedic dance. Her character is sabotaged with a pair of soaped-up dancing shoes, causing her to slip and fall every time she tries to dance. I've watched this over and over and I laugh out loud every time I see it. It takes a very good, well-trained dancer to be able to fall down as much and as well as she did.

What works in this movie is the comedy of the four men, especially Jack Oakie but also Micha Auer, Frank Jenks, and Gene Raymond - and, in her soapy dance number, of Lucile Ball. Both when they play swing and when they crack jokes, they're funny, and often very funny. I just watched the movie again on TCM, and I came to the conclusion that this could have been a very fine comedy if Pons and much of her music had been replaced by someone else. But she not only does not add to this picture, her moments on screen often detract. And that is a real shame, because other than her, there is a lot to like here.

I enjoy Pons' operatic recordings, and have most of them, but she doesn't work well in this movie. She had neither the personality nor - to be honest - the looks of Jeannette MacDonald or Grace Moore, and at this point she was still having real problems with the English language. A comedy with a lead who isn't good with the language is a real problem. Contrast her with Herman Bing, who misused English to comic effect, and you see the difference. She was no dancer, at least in this movie, either. Her one real talent, that for which she was famous at the Met, was her high notes.

That causes problems in a movie made for a general audience. She is too often given music to show off her very high notes and her staccati. At the Met audiences appreciate that sort of thing, but it seems misplaced in what was meant to be a general audience movie. She should have been given more lyrical music, less fireworks. Think of Jeannette MacDonald singing "San Francisco" in the movie of the same name, which came out the year before, or Grace Moore singing "Ciriciribin" - much less "Minnie the Moocher" - and you see how such a soprano could have handled pop music effectively. Pons just doesn't seem at ease with it.

It's interesting to see how she performs "Una voce poco fa" in her Met Opera scene. If that's how she did the role on stage, she was not much of an actress even by the operatic standards of her day. She tilts her head to the music, and opens and closes her fan. That's about all there is to it. If you recall Risë Stevens doing the Habanera from Carmen in *Going My Way* you can see that more could have been done to make the scene interesting - if Pons had been willing.

This movie could also have used a better director, to make the comedy scenes even better, or perhaps to have helped Pons do a better job. I suppose RKO was not going to assign one of its better directors to this.

But the basic problem is that Pons was not movie material, at least not for this sort of general audience comedy. She doesn't sink the picture, but she doesn't add anything positive to it, either. On this latest watching, I do really feel that she messed up what could have been a fine film.

Footnote: The year after making this picture, the male lead, Gene Raymond, would marry Jeannette MacDonald, another lyric coloratura who was much better suited to the movies, and much better presented there.

I wish I had a time machine and could go back to the old Met and hear some of these singers like Galli-Curci and Lily Pons, who had voices the size of gnats. Nowadays a straight coloratura would never be given Violetta to sing. I'm not even sure one would sing Lucia. They still sing Gilda, and by Act II, it looks like a silent movie. as no one can hear them.

Anyway, Lily Pons was a huge international breakout opera star who made three films for RKO in the '30s. She also did advertisements and gave concerts. Here, she plays a singer, Nikki Martin, a Parisian without a passport who takes off on her wedding day and winds up meeting musician Windy McLean (Gene Raymond) who plays with a band, the 'McLean Wildcats.' Nikki falls for him and stows away on the ship that takes him and his band back to America. Authorities find her, lock her up, and fire the band, which was supposed to play on the ship. Nikki escapes once the ship reaches New York and turns up at the Wildcats' apartment.

Windy's girlfriend, Clair (Lucille Ball) arrives and has a job for them at a roadhouse, which gets them out of town and away from the authorities, who want to bring them to justice for hiding Nikki. When Clair is injured, Nikki becomes very popular as the band's singer. Clair reports them, and soon, they're on the run again.

The band players (Jack Oakie, Hermann Bing, and Mischa Auer) are funny and lively. The film contains lots of music of all kinds. At the end, Pons sings one of her signature roles, Rosina in "The Barber of Seville." Today that role is sung by a mezzo-soprano.

Pons had excellent coloratura technique (but no trill) and, like most female singers of that era, backed off the high notes. It has to do with their training and the type of sound that was considered acceptable. She had a high F and was known for Lakme, an opera which isn't done much anymore.

This is an entertaining film that gives one a chance to see one a really big opera star of the day, during a time when opera was much more a part of the culture. Pons sang into her seventies and, even when I was a child, was still very well known.

It does have one scene of note. Pons plays an opera singer hiding out with a jazz band. The band knows nothing of her identity. She sabotages their singer (Lucille Ball in an early role) and is forced to go on stage as a substitute. Well, she only knows opera; the band only knows jazz. She sings "The Blue Danube" with both her and the band segueing from classical singing to jazz and back. It's a really delightful number, very inventive. If the movie is ever on TCM or AMC, it's work a look just for that

Perhaps it made sense from a commercial standpoint: bringing a great lady of the opera, Lili Pons, to a level at which the public could more easily relate to her - perhaps even to identify with her in some respects. The result, ideally, would have been to create a leading lady in films who sang divinely as she was surrounded by "us." Miss Pons gave it her best try - here and elsewhere - but it just didn't work. Most unfortunately, the filmmakers effort to generate the common touch involved presenting her in the most commonplace outfits, makeup and coiffure, downplaying the "glamour" associated with grand opera. Supporting her with the buffoonery of Jack Oakie and his cohorts, having her hiding under blankets, climbing here and there, etc. doesn't register either. Though no beauty, Lili Pons can radiate elegance and charm (along with her great vocalizing), as she does, in full costume, when she sings "Una voce poco fa" in this picture. Her movies don't give us enough of the Lili Pons that made her a stage presence, and might have made her a screen presence. To have her play against (her own) type - here and elsewhere - was a mistake.