50 Million Frenchmen

The title suggests a saucy, sophisticated pre-Code bonbon, but oh dear. Oh Dear, Oh Dear...

Warner Bros. Had bankrolled the 1929 Broadway original of this production, but by the time it went before the cameras in August 1930 the public had had enough of musicals and the studio in desperation completely cut out the Cole Porter score (only 'You Do Something to Me' is heard on the soundtrack as incidental music) and instead tried to turn it into a vehicle for Olsen & Johnson. After pretending it might just all go away, Warner Bros. Eventually slipped it into cinemas in February 1931 where it swiftly died at the box office (although it was released abroad still with its songs intact, in a version now lost).

At least in 1931 the thing was in Technicolor, but now lacking even that embellishment it just looks cheap and tawdry and the hotel setting stagey and drab. (The most obvious remaining evidence that it was ever in colour is a joke by Johnson about a parrot blushing, and the heavy makeup worn by leading man William Gaxton). Gaxton has been saddled with playing that tired old cliché, a millionaire playboy talked into temporarily giving up his millionaire lifestyle for a wager; not that the film does much with the idea.

For anybody hoping for pre-Code raciness, the humour is just coarse, with a creepy amount of lingering on ladies' underwear; and the gruesome sight of Olsen & Johnson modelling a pair of nighties. Several other reviewers have already commented on Johnson's laugh; which grows on you like fingernails down a blackboard. Bela Lugosi makes a fleeting appearance as a magician; but if you blinked you'd miss him.

This is the second of the Ole Olsen & Chic Johnson movies I've seen after Ghost Catchers last October. They're a bit funnier here and Johnson's constant laugh does get a bit irritating though not so much that I didn't find it funny again at the end. This was originally a musical with Cole Porter songs but by the time this was adapted for the screen, the vogue for movie musicals had cooled a bit and wouldn't become popular again until 42nd Street a couple years later so only an Olsen & Johnson number is all that's left of the songs though some instrumental versions of those tunes serve as the underscore. Like I said, the team are quite hilarious here especially when they disguise themselves as magicians after stealing the real one-Bela Lugosi's-clothes! By the way, this came out the same day as Lugosi's Dracula so it wouldn't be long before the Hungarian actor became a household name. So on that note, 50 Million Frenchmen is worth a look for fans of movie comedy and of the comedy team.

50 Million Frenchmen (1931)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Your tolerance level of Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson will certainly determine how much you enjoy this comedy from director Lloyd Bacon. In the film they play two dumb Americans who find themselves in Paris trying to track down a certain woman. Along the way they manage to drive many people crazy including the viewers of the film. 50 MILLION FRENCHMEN is a pretty bad movie on several levels. I understand that comedy is very subjective but the Olsen and Johnson routine just didn't win me over here. In fact, I thought it was quite annoying at times and especially the Johnson laugh, which just made me want to throw myself in front of a moving bus. Even if you do enjoy their routine you're still going to be left with a rather poorly made movie. This was one of those early talkies where it's clear that most of the people involved just didn't know what they were doing yet. Just check out the opening scene with the woman and watch her performance. She's all over the place and appears to be looking off camera at the director trying to get some sort of help. Others throughout the cast also appears to be struggling in front of the camera but it doesn't stop here because the cinematography is bad and the entire film just has a very cheap look. Bela Lugosi fans might want to skip through some of the film to find his uncredited performance. It's funny to note that this film opened the same date as Dracula.

Hardcore fans of Olsen and Johnson and/or Bela Lugosi will need no persuading, but others may find Fifty Million Frenchmen a pretty heavy slog. It's one of those early talkies where the actors hadn't quite figured out how to adjust their body language or their vocal intonations to suit the new medium, and it's at times awkwardly paced and badly shot. Nonetheless there are some inspired moments of Olson and Johnson lunacy, especially when the boys disguise themselves as the assistants of a stage magician and end up on stage performing a deadly sword trick. The romantic subplots are unnecessary and uninteresting and Johnson's maniacal laughter soon gets irksome.

"Fifty Million Frenchmen" was a musical comedy play that Warner Brothers backed with the plan of turning it into a film. But by the time that it came for filming in 1930, musical films were landing with a thud as far as movie going audiences were concerned. So plans were made to strip out all of the songs and just add more Olsen and Johnson where the music had been. It was still filmed in Technicolor though, which has been lost. All that's left are the black and white copies, which explains its blurry appearance.

The basic thread of the story is not a bad one. A rich ne'er do well American playboy in Paris, Jack Forbes (William Gaxton) well financed by his industrialist father to stay as far away from the family business as possible, sees Lu Lu Carroll (Claudia Dell) and falls instantly in love. Michael Cummins (John Halliday) says that he is also interested in her. He bets Forbes that he cannot win the girl's heart without any of his money as a means to impress her and take her places. If Forbes wins, Cummins will pay him 50 thousand dollars. If Cummins wins the bet, Forbes will pay him 50 thousand dollars. In the meantime, Forbes must make his living any way that he can, starting with no money or letters of credit in his pocket.

Warner Brothers, in just another year or two with better performers, could have made this work as a pretty decent precode. The main problem is the large part that Olsen and Johnson have in this film. Their part is that Cummins hires them to make sure that Forbes doesn't cheat and borrow money off of anyone. They're just not funny and Johnson's incessant hyena-like laughter gets old in a hurry. Show me you're funny, don't TELL me you're funny! Make this about Forbes and his creative attempts to survive and impress the girl given that he has no money and no contacts in a country that is foreign to him, and this could have been interesting. Instead the focus is Olsen and Johnson and their juvenile and archaic attempts at humor.

The few interesting spots include Helen Broderick as someone who hires Forbes as a guide and Bela Lugosi as a mystic.