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Years before pre-nuptial agreements became a regular thing, Ernest Lubitsch made a screen comedy on which they are the basis. Bluebeard's Eighth Wife involves Gary Cooper as a multi-millionaire living on the French Riviera who's been married seven times and now marries Claudette Colbert for number eight. But Cooper's a good sport about it, he always settles with his ex-wives for a $50,000.00 a year as per an agreement they sign before marrying him. Sounds like what we now call a pre-nuptial agreement.

Of course Claudette wants a lot more than that and she feels Cooper takes an entirely too business like approach to marriage. She'd like the real deal and is willing to go some considerable lengths to get it.

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife has some really funny moments, the original meeting of Cooper and Colbert in a men's store where Cooper is insisting he wants only pajama tops and Colbert looking for only bottoms. And of course my favorite is Colbert trailing and blackmailing the detective Cooper sends to spy on her. Herman Bing has the best supporting role in the film as that selfsame, flustered detective.

I've often wondered how back in the day Hollywood could get away with casting so many people who are non-French in a film like this. Of course Cooper is an American and Colbert of the cast is the only one actually of French background. Though David Niven is charming as always, having him be a Frenchman is ludicrous, he is sooooooo British.

Nevertheless Bluebeard's Eighth Wife is an enjoyable film and a great example of what was called 'the Lubitsch touch' back in the day.

Ernst Lubitsch is the guiding hand behind "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife," a 1938 comedy starring Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper. The screenplay was written with a light touch by Brackett and Wilder.

The story concerns a wealthy man, Michael Brandon (Cooper), who meets the very attractive Nicole De Loiselle (Colbert) in a Parisian men's department store. Brandon wants to buy the top of the pajamas, as that's what he sleeps in, but the clerk insists that he buy the entire set. Nicole enters and buys the pants.

Nicole's father (Edward Everett Horton) is a penniless marquis, trying to sell a project to Brandon, who isn't interested. The marquis then attempts to get him to buy a Louis IV bathtub. When he realizes that Nicole is the marquis' daughter, the marquis sees immediately that there is interest and tries to get them together. After all, he's loaded, and the hotel bill is due.

Finally, the couple does become engaged and of course the marquis brings in his entire family at his expense for the wedding. While everyone is gathering for a photograph, some white stuff falls out of Michael's suit. "What is that?" she asks. "It's rice," he says. "Don't you use it at weddings? It's supposed to bring good luck." "Did your bride and groom have good luck?" she asks. "Well," he says, "we had a pleasant six months."

She then finds out he's been married seven times. After renegotiating some sort of prenup he has set up, she goes through with the wedding, but they live separate lives.

For some reason, people put this film in the same category as I Met Him in Paris because they're on the same DVD and they both take place in Paris. I Met Him in Paris is not a Lubitsch film and has some problems. This film has a fine script, zips along at a great pace, and has some wonderful scenes. I Met Him in Paris didn't really pick up until the second part.

Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert are delightful. It's hard to believe that someone like Gary Cooper actually existed - tall, drop dead gorgeous, and a cowboy to boot. Talk about your perfect man. And what a smile.

Colbert is flawless in acting and in beauty - I saw her up close in 1974 and she looked the same as she did in this film. For as much success that she had, I don't think she ever received the credit for her dramatic work that she deserved, though she did for her comedy.

In her last appearance, in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, she played an actual person, Elsie Woodward (name changed in the movie), and people who knew Elsie said Colbert was totally the character.

I don't think this is Lubitsch's best, but it's still delightful. How can you miss with those stars, that director, and those writers.

David Niven has a supporting role as an employee of Brandon's who is also a friend of Nicole's. He's very funny.

It starts in the French Riviera at a dressing department store where an elegant man wants to buy pyjama tops and a woman the bottoms . He is the US multi-millionaire Michael Brandon (Gary Cooper, though miscast , at times ) who tries to marry his eight wife , called Nicole (Claudette Colbert is fine as the beautiful girl who aims to be his eighth) . After learning her multi-millionaire fiancé has already been married seven times , Nicole , daughter of a bankrupted French Marquis (Edward Everett Horton) attempts to tame the egoistic man and he then ends at an asylum . He married in haste and repeated in pleasure!

Problematic comedy and sporadically fun , set in the French Riviera about a spoiled millionaire who attempts to marry the daughter of a penniless marquis , she then decides to control him , as she doesn't want to be only a number in the row of his ex-wives and starts her own strategy to "tame" him . Good for a few laughs , based on the play by Alfred Savoir and American version by Charlton Andrews with a diverting script by prestigious Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder , though providing a wrong sort of discomfort to the closing scenes at a lunatic sanatorium . Adding some scenes justifying Ernst Lubitsch's reputation for his famous ¨Touch¨ , along with adequate as well as evocative musical score by Frederick Hollander . This Lubitsch romp contains a very good main and support cast . Gary Cooper is nice as the millionaire who who can handle money but not wives , as he has a comeuppance coming up from the eighth , though Coop seems out of place as a playboy . Claudette Colbert is perfect as the woman who aims to be his eighth and she then tries to tame him. There's astringent and typecast secondary cast from sympathetic Edward Everett Horton as the broken Marquis De Loiselle , delightful David Niven as Albert De Regnier , Elizabeth Patterson as Aunt Hedwige , Herman Bing as Monsieur Pepinard , Warren Hymer as Kid Mulligan and Franklin Pangborn as snooty Assistant Hotel Manager

The motion picture well photographed by Leo Tover was competently made by master filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch ,though softening the script's acidity, and he had previously directed Gary Cooper in Design for life . Lubitsch was a maestro director of naughty but entertaining comedies who had lots of successes . Lubitsch's breakthrough film came in 1918 with "The Eyes of the Mummy", a tragedy starring future Hollywood star Pola Negri. Also that year he made Carmen (1918), again with Negri, a film that was commercially successful on the international level. His work already showed his genius for catching the eye as well as the ear in not only comedy but historical drama. The year 1919 found Lubitsch directing seven films, the two standouts being his lavish Madame DuBarry (1919) with two of his favorite actors--Negri (yet again) and Emil Jannings. His other standout was the witty parody of the American upper crust, "The Oyster Princess" 1919 . This film was a perfect example of what became known as the Lubitsch styl e, or the "Lubitsch Touch", as it became known--sophisticated humor combined with inspired staging that economically presented a visual synopsis of storyline, scenes and characters. Lubitsch directed a lot of comedies and vintage movies , such as : ¨Heaven can wait¨, ¨That uncertain feeling¨, ¨Ninotchka¨, ¨Bluebeard's eight wife¨, ¨Angel¨, ¨The merry widow¨, ¨The Student Prince¨, ¨So this is Paris¨, ¨Lady Windermere's fan¨, ¨The marriage circle¨, ¨One Arabian night¨, ¨Passion¨, ¨Gypsy blood¨, among others . Rating : 7/10 . Better than average .

Oh Lubitsch how we needed you. Others could elicit fiery performances from actors, captivate with riveting story or lavish us with sets and camera magic. These usually require to be propped up with some effort, but what Lubitsch does simply requires letting go of, in particular letting go of our need to prop up fiction a certain way.

Usually understood as a gift for wit, his famed 'Lubitsch touch' is actually a mastery of something else, spontaneous illogicality. I have written about him in a few other posts so will not bore you here. It's the continuous shift of context, the dismantling of our expectation that story plays out a certain way.

The story could be anything, here a man and woman court each other while vacationing in the French Riviera. He's the blustering American type who won't take no and won't tiptoe around European niceties. She's elegant and smart but will not stoop to be wowed by money like her shyster father.

In the usual mode, they would brush and bounce off each other whilst trying to top each other for control over the story. This as hardwon love that surprises. That's fine, plenty of enjoyable films were being made in this time, what we now know as screwball. For me it's all a matter of how we brush, how much narrative space the players create by pushing and pulling, in which self can take shape, actual visible shape, as the story we watch. Capra has a very agile touch in It Happened One Night. I happen to find His Girl Friday coarse, par the course for Hawks.

In Lubitsch's world, we shift and shift again in a jazz merry-go-round of elusive self. Here's some of it. They meet as strangers in a store, cooperating over trying to buy pyjamas. He decides he's smitten, but uses money to come close to her. So what happens? She agrees to be bought as a wife but gives him a thankless marriage for it, although in love herself.

This is lovely work, clean, vibrant. Some if are just gags, like having married seven times before her. But quite a bit of it is that wondrous surprise where emotions express themselves in paradoxical ways.

An Ernst Lubitsch comedy, co-scripted by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, which has always been generally dismissed by critics and fans alike. Perhaps with the film's reputation as a lesser effort those who sit down to view it will be pleasantly surprised to find it an agreeable affair, anyway.

Gary Cooper plays a seven times married American businessman millionaire who finds that with wife no. 8 (Claudette Colbert) he may have met his match. She has made him agree to a pre nuptial agreement of paying her $100,000 should there be a divorce and then makes him spend much of the marriage unhappy and wishing he hadn't signed that agreement.

While the film is never as funny or clever as the best of Lubitsch, it still has its moments. The film is remembered primarily for the scene in which Colbert and Cooper "meet cute" as they agree to split a pair of pajamas in a department store.

But there are other moments, too, such as the scene in which Cooper, inspired by having just read Taming of the Shrew, bursts out of his room, walks with great macho determination and accompanying soundtrack drum roll down a hallway, enters a room where Colbert stands and slaps her across the face. She responds by slapping him back and Cooper, perplexed by this unexpected turn of events, leaves the room, walks back through that same hallway to his room again and picks up the book to try to figure out what he did wrong.

Like all Lubitsch productions this film has a graceful air of sophistication, with a physical elegance in its sets and photography. Colbert is an old hand at frothy material like this while Cooper, cast against type, plays his role with obvious enthusiasm. He's a far cry from the Cooper we're used to seeing on screen in the scene in which he plays a piano while singing "Looky, looky, looky, Here comes Cookie" to Claudette. The supporting cast is first rate, all of them deft performers: a young David Niven, and old pro character actors Edward Everett Horton and Herman Bing.

English mangling, beer barrel shaped Herman Bing is the unlikeliest of detectives, hired by Cooper to follow his wife to see if she has any lovers. "Don't forget," he tells the millionaire, "we are a first class firm. You will find that out when you get our bill." Recommended as middling production code era Paramount fare.

There is something about seeing a movie in a good, old-fashioned movie house that adds enormous appeal to every picture. I, fortunately enough, was able to see at Film Forum in New York City a pair of Ernst Lubitsch comedies during their three week tribute to the legendary director. The double feature I attended was a screening of Lubitsch's 1938 comedy Bluebeard's Eighth Wife and the pre-Code classic Design for Living, neither of which I had seen before. Everything I read of Design for Living praised the film, but I could not find a good review anywhere for Bluebeard's Eighth Wife. Leonard Maltin disliked it.VideoHound, too, gave the comedy a low rating.its IMDB score was not complimentary.and Pauline Kael (not a great surprise) blasted the film in her scathing review. So, when I went into the city that day I was expecting to enjoy Bluebeard's Eighth Wife only slightly and love Design for Living completely. Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (which was showing first) began, as the eccentrics who populate the cinema took their seats and the thirties music subsided. `Adolph Zukor presents Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper in Ernst Lubitsch's Bluebeard's Eighth Wife,' the title card read. Then the picture opened with a hilarious scene: Cooper wants to buy a pair of pajama tops, but he doesn't want any part of the bottoms! He gets into a squabble with the clerk, who seeks the help of his higher bosses, and their seems to be no end to the argument. Enter Claudette Colbert, one of thirties cinema's most beautiful, charming, and talented personalities. `I'll take the bottom,' she kindly intercedes. And there you have perhaps screwball comedies finest `meet cute' ever. The film kept my interest wonderfully.I found myself laughing almost constantly. When Colbert discovers, just before a family portrait is taken, that her groom-to-be has been married seven times, the entire theatre broke into histerics. When she bargains for money immediately after she gets over her shock, the laughs (which still haven't ceased) intensify. And Edward Everett Horton milked some hilarious reactions out of the script as well. When Cooper takes inspiration from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew in disciplining his wife by slapping her in the face, I could not control my laughter when she slapped him back. And the drunk scene with the scallions is one of Claudette Colbert's funniest comic scenes. The greatest comic moment of the film came when Colbert highers a boxer to `teach her husband a lesson.' In pure screwball fashion, he knocks out the wrong man, instead putting her friend David Niven into a cold sleep. He awakes as Cooper is arriving. In order to cover up the situation, Colbert herself, in a moment of strong sexiness, puts her fist up to Niven, asks: `Where did that man hit you? Here? Right here? Right here?' and then BAM! knocks him out again! The film was wonderful, from beginning to end it was a perfect delight. I loved Design for Living, too, though I dare say I think for sheer laughs and entertainment Bluebeard's Eighth Wife was the better and more enjoyable film. There is some charm of seeing a vintage film on the large screen. And in the presence of others laughing, one feels more comfortable doing so himself. That is, perhaps, why I felt the way I did about Bluebeard's Eighth Wife.

'Absolutely delightful' sounds a bit twee doesn't it? The mid-thirties were awash with so-called 'sophisticated comedies' all pretty bland and predictable. This however has something special about it. It's not quite a laugh out loud comedy but it's genuinely charming and guaranteed to leave you a happier person.

What makes this a class above most offerings from 1938 is that you can't help loving the characters. Clearly it's easy to fall in love with Claudette Colbert but Gary Cooper's millionaire is surprisingly endearing too. He was excellent in the brilliant comedy BALL OF FIRE with Barbara Stanwyck but because you associate Gary Cooper with stoic, serious roles, when he's in a comedy, a genuinely funny comedy and he is genuinely funny himself, it really makes an impression. He's still every inch, the man's man but also oblivious to the ways of the fairer sex. That he tries to learn about how to treat troublesome women by reading The Taming of the Shrew is a classic piece of comedy.

Lubitsch was the undisputed master at making a simple battle of the sexes movies witty, loading it with sexual frustration and innuendo whilst still making it utterly charming.....but this was no simple battle of the sexes movie - this was written by Charles Bracket and Billy Wilder so Lubitsch didn't have to try too hard. Like any good comedy, the humour comes from your belief in the realness of the characters and this is such a well crafted 'rom com' that you're completely drawn into this silly but lovely picture. When it ends, you are smiling and you feel like applauding!

And of course, Claudette Colbert looks like a goddess!

For some perverse reason best known to themselves these IMDb boards seem reluctant to credit the great Billy Wilder as co-scriptwriter on at least two (this one and Ninotchka) of his early classics when any buff can detect the Wilder hand at work. As it happens this represented the first time he was teamed with Charles Brackett (who DOES get a credit) and it was a great start. One commenter has noted how satisfying it is to see these type of films in old-fashioned cinemas and I couldn't agree more. In Paris one of the smaller Revival houses shows in one of its salles a more or less continuous Lubitsch retrospective and I'm pleased to report that this played to a very appreciative audience right across the age spectrum though I doubt whether any were actually alive when it was first released in 1938. The famous Wilder schtick the meet-cute is particularly tasty here when millionaire but-careful-with-it Cooper attempts to buy half a set of pajamas in a department store on the Riviera and meets with sales resistance until Claudette Colbert turns up and agrees to buy the other half. The gag is milked even more when, having exhausted the chain of command at the store itself the manager places a call to the owner, who is in bed and leaves it to reveal that he, too, is only wearing the top half of pajamas. The film is full of sight-gags like this balanced with verbal wit which makes it just about perfect. Claudette Colbert is only terrific and gets great backing from Edward Everett Horton as her impoverished titled father. David Niven in fourth billing has some funny 'business' as does Franklin Pangborn and if Gary Cooper is not up to his role lacking as he does the verbal dexterity and sophisticated persona that Wilder scripts called for at this stage of his career well, you can't have everything and what you DO have is darned near perfect.

One of Ernest Lubitsch's lesser known films but an essential part of the canon nevertheless and why wouldn't it be with its Charles Brackett/Billy Wilder screenplay and with Cooper and Colbert as the leads. It's as frivolous as they come with Cooper and Colbert meeting cute over a pair of pajamas and marrying in a flash making Colbert Cooper's eighth wife but one determined that if there is to be a ninth then at least Claudette will come out of it rich.

Throw in David Niven, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn and Elizabeth Patterson and you have the perfect cast. Of course, it's all very silly but it may also be proof that silliness might just have been what Cooper was best at while his leading lady is simply perfection. Belly laughs are largely absent; this is a slight affair by Lubitsch standards but even minor Lubitsch is a treat.

I saw this movie again today and decided to re-review it. While I still was not thrilled by the film, I realize that my earlier review was too harsh. I think this occurred since I knew it was an Ernst Lubitsch film and I expected so much more.

While the film was directed by the fantastic director, Ernst Lubitsch, it sure lacked the great writing of his more famous films. His films (apart from this one) were well-known for their charm, romance and the "Lubitsch touch"--a way of saying that the movies had a certain something that lifted them to greatness that was beyond words. Some examples of seemingly ordinary plots that were lifted to greatness by his genius would be IF I HAD A MILLION, THE GOOD FAIRY, TROUBLE IN PARADISE, NINOTCHKA, THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER and THE MERRY WIDOW. Second, the film was co-written by another man destined for greatness, Billy Wilder--director of a long list of his own great films. With this esteemed pedigree, I figured it was practically impossible for the film to be anything but marvelous. Boy, was I wrong--this story was one that just shouldn't have been made despite the efforts of the actors to carry it off. All the elements SEEMED right but the overall effort wasn't.

The film starred Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert. This was an odd pairing (even odder than Colbert and John Wayne in WITHOUT RESERVATIONS) and the actors just seemed to have little, if any, chemistry between them. Their styles were just too different and Cooper's character was just too unlikable. He played a mega-rich American who had absolute contempt for marriage and fidelity--having gone through seven "quickie" marriages before he even met Colbert. This is a fundamental problem, because a man who is so shallow that he could do this is tough to like as a leading man. Plus, what's romantic about a guy who's already been married seven times? So, when Cooper professes his undying love for Colbert, she and the audience are left to think "who cares?!". How can you detect the Lubitsch touch in such a contrived and unromantic plot? This makes connecting with and caring about Cooper very difficult, though there STILL could have been a decent film beneath this bizarre plot element. However, given that there is little chemistry between them and that the dialog is often quite forced, there just isn't much left to care about or keep your interest. The bottom line is that unless you are a complete old movie zombie (like me), this film is a bitter disappointment--watchable and cute in places, but still nothing like I'd hoped for in a Lubitsch film.

When my colleague suggested watching this movie, she showed me the Shakespeare-reading scene. As I found it really amusing, I later watched the whole piece. And I didn't regret the time I spent! To say honestly, I'm not the old movie addict who knows all the history of American and European film industry back to black-and-white silent pictures and being woken up at night can list all the prominent actors and directors. I'm not into movies at all, which is the reason that my watching list is highly haphazard with British series followed up by French melodramas and historical documentaries. Bluebeard's Eighth Wife is a really nice piece featuring good-looking actors, jokes, funny without the slightest trace of vulgarity. The plot is a turned inside out ''Taming of the Shrew'', and no wonder it appears as a book the main hero reads, as I mentioned at the beginning of my review. However, it is common knowledge that not the plot itself, but its presentation matters, and in this case it does not undermine expectations. The naivety of the old times has a special charm, especially the good old happy end, so enjoy!

The great writing team of Billy Wilder and Brackett have their brilliant mischievous fingerprints all over this one as Lubitsch pushes the envelope in his patented sensual/sexual/vulgar ways as best he can at the height of the code. Franky, I am surprised with what he gets away with here. Colbert, Cooper and Niven all at their best. Have fun. It's a blast. I would give this an 8 if not for some scenes that I put a bar below the top-level comedies.

Claudette Colbert. Gary Cooper. Edward Everett Horton. The great Ernst Lubitsch, with one of the most distinctive directing styles of any director that even has its own name as director. Billy Wilder, a terrific director himself, with a writing credit. That the 30s is one of my favourite decades in film and 'Bluebeard's Eighth Wife' in type of story sounded like something that would be enjoyable to me. So the potential was quite large, the potential for it to be great.

'Bluebeard's Eighth Wife', having said all of that, could have been a lot better. Great potential with enough to recommend but for my personal tastebuds it doesn't completely come off and for Lubitsch it is quite a big disappointment, especially considering that it came from a very good period for him. But not because it didn't try, it and everyone involved, very much did try. If anything this was a case of trying too hard. While one can totally see what Colbert's appeal was watching her performance here, this is not a good representation of Cooper.

There are good things. It is beautifully filmed and do love Colbert's wardrobe, she always did look lovely in her films. It is scored with the right amount of energy and lushness. There are signs of brilliance in Lubitsch's direction and his uniquely deft mix of wit and sophisticated elegance. The script does boast some wonderfully witty lines, and as others have said 'Bluebeard's Eighth Wife' has some great moments too. The biggest delights being Colbert's drunk scene and especially the opening sequence. The slapping scene is surprisingly clever and amusing for something that could have easily been distasteful.

Furthermore Colbert is terrific, she radiates on screen, her comic timing is on point. Horton as always steals his scenes, comedy comes so easy to him. Likewise with Herman Bing.

Did think however that there were too many times where the humour could have been sharper and even more subtle. As said, other efforts of Lubitsch and Wilder show off their different styles more. Wilder is usually more consistently wittier than this and Lubitsch's elegant touch is not quite as elegant to usual. As said, there were times where it does feel like 'Bluebeard's Eighth Wife' was trying too hard which made the story particularly later on feel contrived.

Namely towards the end where the material lost its freshness, and actually though that the treatment of David Niven (doing his best in the wrong role)'s character was on the mean-spirited side. Cooper seemed too amiable to me in playing a character meant to be a jerk and he doesn't look at ease. A few nice moments aside, like their first scene, their chemistry doesn't quite gel properly.

Altogether, watchable but disappointing. 5/10

I have to agree with other reviews I've seen of this movie - despite some funny scenes and good lines, as a whole it just doesn't get off the ground, and Gary Cooper is wrong in the role of the much-married millionaire. Having said that, I love the scene where Claudette Colbert's character, talking about her financial difficulties, says: "Have you ever had a waiter look at you with untipped eyes? And when I ask the elevator boy for the fourth floor, he says 'Yes, Madame' and takes a detour through the basement." A small detail: in one scene Colbert is looking at a book called "Live Alone and Like It" which was an actual best-seller at the time.

'Bluebeard's Eighth Wife' tells the story of how an American millionaire (Gary Cooper) marries his eighth wife (Colette Colbert), the daugher of an impoverished French aristocrat, and of how the first months of their marriage play out. It is essentially the 'Taming of the Shrew' with swapped gender roles, the difference being that instead of not wanting to marry, the shrewish party - Cooper - is all too eager. This is a pleasing comedy with brilliant dialogues, but it has a few downsides: First, it essentially consists of two independent films: one that concerns Cooper's attempts to convince Colbert of marrying him, and another one that concerns their antics once they are married. Both parts are quite different in tone. Second, I found Cooper miscast in the Bluebeard-role. His specialty were roles where he played the sensible guy, rather than someone as OTT as this millionaire. And finally, what Colbert was aiming at in the whole game became clear to me only towards the end of the film. Until then, I suspected her of wanting the money promised her in the marriage settlement in case of a divorce. To some extent, that spoiled the fun, at least for me. Still, all in all this is a very watchable Lubitsch.

This film was absolutely hilarious. I am not a fan of romantic comedies, but this film won me over. It had so many wonderful jokes that you just wouldn't see in a movie these days, and with such a charm that you could never even dream of seeing in a romantic comedy today.

The leads were wonderful as their characters, and the performances seemed very natural. Cooper was wonderful as the adventurous, picky, and misogynistic Mr Brandon. Colbert was beautiful as the playful, tricky, and scheming Nicole, and Horton was a barrel of laughs as her money grubbing father. The entire cast seemed just perfect.

This is a truly wonderful film which a viewer can sit back, enjoy and laugh with.

Gary Cooper, (Michael Brandon) played the role as an American millionaire who had seven bad marriages, but always divorced his wife's with plenty of money to live on. Michael is in Paris on business and goes into a French Department Store to buy a pair of pajama tops and the sales people refuse to sell him just the tops, he has to buy the bottoms or there is no sale. Nicole DeLoiselle, (Claudette Colbert) listens to this conversation and offers to buy the bottom of these pajama's. Michael becomes very interested in Nicole and they have occasion to meet and go on dates. It is not too long before Michael proposes marriage to Nicole and she is very taken back with his request for marriage since she really does not know him very well. However, once she finds out she is going to become the Eighth wife of Michael she begins to change her mind and this story becomes quite entertaining and funny. Don't miss this film, it is great entertainment by great veteran actors. Enjoy.

In the south of France, wealthy banker Michael Brandon (Gary Cooper) demands to buy only the pajama top out of a set. This turns into a big argument with the store. Nicole De Loiselle (Claudette Colbert) walks into the situation and gets involved. Her father, The Marquis De Loiselle (Edward Everett Horton), is struggling to pay his hotel bill, and Brandon decides to put his money to use. Albert De Regnier (David Niven) is a suitor until he discovers that Brandon is his ultimate boss. Michael keeps proposing marriage to Nicole. Eventually, she relents and at their wedding, she discovers that he's been married seven times.

This is a light rom-com. Claudette Colbert remains the era's rom-com queen. The Charles Brackett-Billy Wilder script has some fun. Gary Cooper is doing Gary Cooper mostly. This may not be the best of the era, but it is still pretty good.

The Lubitsch's Touch is more than ever in this film. Humour at anytime and very subtle. The plot is simple but turned in a delicious way by the director. The film cut is very clever and add to the comic effect. A real piece of comedy that isn't getting so old for a XXIst century spectator. The character are finely acted by Gary Cooper and especially Claudette Colbert so smart and mean with this poor Micheal in the movie. She avoid every traps from her husband and turn the situation to her advantage, very funny. And no problem, with Lubitsch, there is always an Happy end. A film for men too confident with women. Don't let your girlfriend watch this movie...

Well worth seeing for much of the script which however-like the BW scripted Midnight and Ninotchka-becomes a bit congested in the late middle and end stages. Excellent extended first scene well played by all. Other issues: lack of chemistry between Colbert and Cooper who play energetically. Otherwise the 2 are just above adequate. Ed Hnrton very good and Leon Ames briefly (uncredited). Colbert looks just plain bad with bangs and minimally attractive.

Very interesting failure. Everything is top-notch - writers, director, cast - and nothing works. What should have been a witty and sparkling adult comedy comes off like a mouthful of cardboard. Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert are like oil and water. The dialog feels arch and stage-bound, and the situations totally false and contrived, possibly because the adults seem to be behaving like 10-year-olds. Its a late 30's film, but feels oddly very early 30's and somehow dated, like a dusted-off version of "Trouble in Paradise". Compares unfavorably with Colbert's next film, the scintillating "Midnight", one of her more amazing roles.

Sometimes the best experiences are watching movies that are bad but nearly good.

That's because movies are all in the same class of languages, meaning they all say different things, but in the same way. So when you watch a movie, in a sense you are watching all the others you have, and in a stranger sense all the movies ever watched by anyone who has had anything to do with this one.

That means that when you watch, you make up your own movie out of stuff that isn't necessarily on screen but is in your situation of recalled narratives. In other words, you see it in context of other movies, and especially those that were good. What this means for me is that unless I truly am captured and fall into the story, losing myself, I watch it with an eye to how it could or should have been. That's easier when the movie is quite bad but almost good, and its more effective when the movie is from the 1930s decade when the vocabulary was still malleable.

This movie has Cooper in a type of role that Cary Grant mastered, a role where the character is a knowing character, who mugs for the audience and winks at the camera, occasionally stepping out of the role. It isn't what I call folded acting, where these things are done simultaneously, like Tuvan throatsingers. Cooper can't quite get it: he's actually serious. He actually thinks he is playing a rich guy with (for Cooper) complex attributes. His co-star gets it, moving in and out of supporting what the movie needs to work and what her character needs to have her scheme work.

In the middle is a reference to "Taming of the Shrew" that has a rather complex generation. The point of that play (if you are a highschooler) is that the wit of the husband is turned on his wife to neutralize her faults. Here, through an equally complex setup, we are introduced to the notion of taking a bit of complex writing (represented by the word "Czechoslovakia") and "reading" it backwards to "enter dreams."

Read "Shrew" backwards and you get a wife taming her husband and the husband's excesses are similar to those of Petruchio in the play. Its an extremely rich and promising notion, and you can see Billy Wilder's mind behind it. There's even an end in a place (a crazyhouse) where people believe they are something they are not — and our wayward man gets tamed, literally in a straitjacket.

Bur everything is off. Cooper is inadequate as mentioned. The comic idea requires something more deft than the screwball formula which was then already mature. And the script has all sorts of false starts. For instance, there's a commanding wheelchair-bound woman who is head of the wife's family. That family is either impoverished or completely fictitious nobility who live for the dependent scam. We have them in the beginning, the part I believe Wilder influenced the most, but she and they disappear when the mechanics of delivering the "lesson" take over. Then we enter something else, dull and halfwitted, inherited from the previous version.

See if you can figure out why Wilder spends so much time on a Louis XIVth bathtub and why that man's death was so important to mention several times.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.