Court-circuit

Suave butler Paul Lukas greatly admires his wealthy employer, one of those vaguely royal European noblemen who wanders around the continent carrying on romantic affairs. Lukas even practices copying the prince's mannerisms and pickup lines.

Traveling with the prince's luggage, he meets attractive and well dressed Elissa Landi and allows her to think he is the prince himself as they strike up a relationship on the train. They quickly fall in love - and Lukas is reluctant to tell her the truth, afraid that she will not be interested when she learns he is only a butler. Landi, on the other hand, is similarly shifty about her own identity....

Nils Asther is lots of fun as the real prince, who readily plays along with Lukas's game when the opportunity comes up. Landi is fine as the leading lady, sometimes very funny as she alternates between displaying allure and alarm. Lukas is good, too, as the slightly goofy impostor whose scheme starts to get out of control.

The plot and all its little devices - candles, champagne, unscrewing a fuse so the lights go out at the right moment - are not only silly but really rather predictable for the most part. Still, this is a solid entry in the early genre of comedies about misbehaving European royalty.

You can tell that "By Candlelight" is a film that came out before the tough Production Code of mid-1934. This is because this comedy also talks about adultery...and it certainly does NOT condemn it in any way!

Josef (Paul Lukas) is the valet to a prince...and a very good one. So when the prince is out whoring around with other men's wives, Josef, as best he can, runs interference. One day, the prince decides to go on a journey...and he sends his valet ahead of him to get his summer home ready. On the train ride, Josef meets a charming woman and Marie (Elissa Landie) assumes that Josef is THE prince...and pursues him. Little does she know that he's no prince...and Marie has a secret of her own to hide.

This is a cute sex comedy...minus the sex. As usual, Lukas is charming and the film has a few nice laughs.

Robert Wyler was a director for Universal whom Laemmle Jr. had promoted; and he had a familial connection. Robert Wyler's maternal grandmother was a first cousin of Universal owner, Carl Laemmle.

There had been turn downs by Wyler, Whale getting the assignments instead, and also cases in which Wyler had failed to be able to make a satisfactory start, and then Whale was asked to continue them.

'By Candlelight' was one of those latter cases.

It had been very successful a few years earlier as a British stage play. Because Whale had already turned down some efforts by Robert Wyler, who did not have the talent to direct, he was nearly forced to take on the film. Perhaps it was a matter of discretion over valor. In the end, he took it on.

He took Ted Kent, his favorite cutter, and the then competent John Mescall as the camera director. Whale started the film over from the beginning.

He filmed the script as it was for the most part, but he also made a game of it, putting in his own special tricks of the trade.

Carl Laemmle was very happy with the result. He liked the film himself, and it brought in good money just in the nick of time to help save the studio once more, adding some good revenue to the spectacular revenues from Whale's 'The Invisible Man' which were then really piling up.

Whale had a contract offer from Paramount as director. He was very actively considering it, but wasn't sure of LeBaron's own firmness in the position of producer; it was LeBaron's offer.

Laemmle offered Whale both a set of raises to automatically kick in, and producer's credit even though Whale would not actually be the producer.

And it's a good thing for us that Whale took Laemmle's offer, or we'd not have had 'Bride of Frankenstein' or 'Show Boat'.

But I'll always wonder what would have become of Whale's career had he taken LeBaron's offer to come and direct at a really powerful studio, which could have offered him some of the best talent, actors, writers and crew, in the world.

Charming film. Lukas is not quite suited to the role. Music is played too loud throughout although it is good music. Whale must have done this quick. Not a whole lot of Whale genius here. Still enjoyable for fans of the period.

This is a well-regarded minor Whale effort which, like REMEMBER LAST NIGHT? (1935) finds him in fine form tackling sophisticated comedy – though it eschews the zaniness which would mark that film; indeed, this is very much in the Lubitsch style and class!

That said, it was criticized for Paul Lukas' central miscasting but I felt he acquitted himself reasonably well under the circumstances. He plays butler to Nils Asther's suave Prince: asked to precede him on a journey, he is mistaken for the real thing when running into charming Elissa Landi (also traveling incognito above her station!) on a train. The two start a hesitant romance, since each is wary of being exposed; the situation is further complicated when the womanizing Asther catches Lukas at his game in his own house. He is willing to play along and assumes the butler's responsibilities, only he has his eyes on Landi too, who in turn is naturally insulted by his impudence! Incidentally, the title is a reference to Asther's recurring trick for seducing the ladies – pretending that the electricity has gone out and having Lukas set up a romantic candle-lit mood (the Prince, then, is happy to oblige his butler during the latter's own affair)!

The mistaken identity ruse (obviously smoothed by the end) has been a staple in the romantic comedy genre, but Whale handles it with tremendous flair and dexterity. Getting back to Lubitsch and his renowned 'touch', we get an ingenious example of it here: Asther is entertaining the opera singer wife of an aristocrat who, breaking into his house, believes he can hear her voice in the next room…but when he steps inside is met with a gramophone playing one of her arias!; still not satisfied, he asks the Prince if he can call her at their home and Asther offers to do it himself – proceeding to connect the phone to a secondary line elsewhere in the house! By the way, what I said about the re-use of sets (and, for that matter, succinctness – since this runs for just 68 minutes) from one film to the other in my review of Whale's THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR (1933) applies here as well: both Asther's house and that of Landi's masters were already seen in that very picture (with the all-important mirror, also featured in the director's FRANKENSTEIN [1931], intact)!

Again, though, the print I acquired is far from optimal – being exceedingly soft and once more (briefly) boasting fluctuating audio. With this in mind, a DVD set through Criterion's sister label Eclipse – compiling Whale's most notable non-horror work (given that the company is on good terms with Universal anyway) – would be a veritable treat, especially for somebody not yet familiar with gems such as this one...