La demoiselle du téléphone

Julian de Lussac, an investor with an expiring option in Chilean mineral rights, is frolicking about with any and every beautiful woman in Paris. Unknown to Julian his current amore, Marguerite, is the scheming wife of a dangerous, scheming investor. Both are contriving to part Julian and his mineral option.

The woman who brings him to his senses is the switchboard operator of his apartment building, Anna. Anna knows every detail of Julian's many affairs and has fallen in love with him via listening in on his phone conversations. She knows why each love affair occurred and why each ended. She also knows from her connections with other operators, just what Marguerite and her husband are up to.

Julian is flattered by Anna's adoration, but in no way returns it. From the time that Anna's secret love is out in the open, Anna wages war against the evil couple who are trying to dupe Julian. Her weapon: the switchboard.

A man with the morals of an alley cat just needs the right woman to show him the path to true love.

Watching Cary Grant in any movies usually means you can expect it to be enjoyable. This movie although short is fine as a funny type of movie from that era. The director of this movie is obviously following the Lubitcsh formula for comedy although not as good as Lubitcsh. You have to give the director credit however in making this short movie interesting. There was obviously budget constraints, but looking at the core supporting players, they actually do an excellent job. George Barbier plays a familiar role of a father who demands his wife is to be married. This is also the role he played however as king in "The Smiling Lieutenant" and he has that role down. What's amazing is the performance of Nydia Westman as Susie Flamberg. She plays and has dialog which is much like Claudette Colbert's role as the daughter seeking the love interest.

In the case of The Smiling Lieutenant, Maurice Chevalier is the love interest the daughter seeks, but in this case it's Cary Grant. When watching an old copy of this movie I actually thought for a moment based on the dialog that Nydia Westman was Caudette Colbert and had to do a double take at the credits.

These are probably formula roles for comedy by this time in the 30s, kind of a formula for haphazard comedy. Never the less, it's fun to watch and not bad. Wish I had a better sounding audio on the copy I saw. I wonder if there are even any good masters of this film available that could meet Turner's quality requirements for release. I give it a solid 7 perhaps it would rate a little better if there had been better audio.

Cary Grant simply isn't good at silly. Maybe I have too many images of him being the lead man in dramas, so to see him playing in bad comedies like "Kiss and Make-Up" and "Ladies Should Listen" is off putting. With a title like "Ladies Should Listen" you have to expect it to not be good.

The is the second movie in which Cary Grant's character steals the significant other of Edward Everett Horton. Horton can't get a break. Whatever movie he plays in he's the square, the nerd, the geek there to play off of the leading man.

Cary Grant plays Julian De Lussac, a French inventor and ladies' man. He was interested in Marguerite Cintos (Rosita Moreno) while Susie Flamberg (Nydia Westman) and another woman was interested in him. All Julian wanted was Marguerite and he had to have her.

Marguerite had called Julian to end their relationship. In a ploy to keep her, Julian pretended to commit suicide while on the phone with her. Within the next minute a distraught woman ran into his room openly mourning his death like she was mourning a lost lover. When Julian got up from playing dead he found that the woman was not Marguerite but Anna Mirelle (Frances Drake), the switchboard operator for the building.

Here's one for you. Through overhearing just about all of Julian's telephone conversations (probably prompted by seeing him and being hopelessly attracted), Anna had come to know and love Julian. She was eavesdropping at the time he pretended to kill himself and was so overcome with grief that she ran up to his apartment to have a moment with him instead of calling emergency services.

She was an obsessed stalker, but she was pretty so it was OK. Right? Plus, this was a comedy so normal rules don't apply. Even still, she was like many women in films who fall for the philanderer. They know he's just looking to conquer one woman after the other, yet they believe that they'll be that woman that he'll settle down with. They do everything they can to gain his attention and prove that they are a better option than all the other hussies he sleeps with while he overlooks her until she does something so outstanding he finally sees her with a romantic eye.

Groan.

The title "Ladies Should Listen" didn't mean what I thought it meant; that ladies should heed their man. In this case it meant that they should listen in or even eavesdrop in order to uncover nefarious plots or be well-informed.

Anna listened and listened. She bent over backwards to protect her crush. Her job and her dignity were both worth sacrificing to give her unsolicited assistance to Julian. It was embarrassing and worse, it wasn't funny.

Free on Odnoklassniki.

I can't quite figure out why so many reviewers here don't think this is much of a film. To me, never having seen it (or, quite honestly, heard of it) before, I found it a delightful time-waster and I was surprised at just how good Cary Grant was at comedy this early in the game. The story is fluff and really doesn't make much sense, but you can say that about THE BIG SLEEP (and everyone does) while still enjoying it. Anyway, any film with Edward Everett Horton in his prime is worth seeing, and to have the two of actors together is icing on the cake. (One might want to read the great Christopher Plummer's autobiography just to learn in what awe he held Horton when acting with him in the 1950s.) Frances Drake is also delightful (although I am more used to seeing her in thrillers like MAD LOVE and THE INVISIBLE RAY) and shows a gift for comedy. But the truly inspired performance in this film, which no words can adequately describe - you really have to see it - is Nydia Westman's. She is just a delight as a cute, pliant, headstrong ditz (no other word will suffice). Again, I've never seen anything like it except maybe Marie Wilson's lovably weird secretary to Warren William in SATAN MET A LADY. The performances are not alike, they are just weirdly different from anything you could possibly expect. Watch this and you'll see what I mean. Of course, the film depends totally on the performers - as a viable screenplay it may have a lot of words but it hardly exists - and they come through. Besides, who ever went to see a Cary Grant film for the screenplay? And Westman delivers lines like little lightning bolts from another planet. I thought the whole thing delightful.

This Cary Grant film is not among his better known pictures...and after seeing it, I understand why. The film is amazingly shallow and light-weight...and quite forgettable.

When the film begins, you learn two things about Julian (Grant)-- despite looking wealthy, he is about to go belly up AND he is an idiot. Why an idiot? Because he meets a lady and knows nothing about her but instantly he declares that he's in love. Later, to get her attention he pretends to shoot himself...and at this point, I was really wishing he'd do it for real!! The film was contrived and repeatedly Julian was just an idiot...and needed a switchboard operator to save him again and again. A very poor script make this a film mostly of interest to huge Grant fans...but no one else. A big misfire.