La boule de cristal

Texan Paulette Goddard pursues rich lawyer Ray Milland, while working for fake fortune teller Gladys George in this funny romantic comedy.

It's a fine, cynical little late screwball comedy, starting off with Gladys George running a con on Milland's man-hungry client, Virginia Field, and Miss Goddard pursuing Milland using her fake psychic abilities. There are plenty of character-based gags for a supporting cast that includes William Bendix, Cecil Kellaway, Sig Arno, and Ernest Truex (who gets to pop Milland in the kisser). Some of the jokes refer to wartime conditions and haven't aged well, but the script keeps them coming, and Elliot Nugent directs it in a breezy manner.

Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland did several films during the Forties enough they should qualify as a screen team. The Crystal Ball has them as a former beauty contest winner who is down to 38 cents to her name as she arrives in New York. She's befriended by Gladys George who is a fortune teller and also by Cecil Kellaway who runs a shooting gallery and she works for both at times.

Enter Ray Milland lawyer whose main client is Virginia Field, oil heiress and believer in the occult and various folks who make their living off the same. Goddard takes one look at Milland and decides he's the one.

Getting him away from Field will be a problem though. So in a series of Lucy like stunts she does everything she can to win Milland including accidentally giving him some inside information concerning his client's estate. And Field who has her hooks into Milland ain't giving up without a fight.

Always amusing and around is William Bendix playing Milland's chauffeur, butler, and general all around factotum. There isn't a movie or television show that he was in that something special wasn't added.

I think The Crystal Ball might have been a classic if someone like Mitchell Leisen or George Marshall had directed it. It's amusing enough, but lacks that classic spark.

Zany wartime madcap from Paramount. Seems Texas girl Toni (Goddard) has designs on handsome city attorney Brad (Milland) but has to out-compete sophisticated rival Jo (Field) for his affections. But don't worry, she's a dead-shot with a rifle and can fake a good crystal ball when she has to. Plenty of chuckles and mild innuendo, throughout, along with nifty scene-ending touches that work as comedic embroidery. Okay, the storyline would flunk a logic course, but who cares, since it's the humor that counts. All in all, the flick's a Goddard showcase that includes snappy support from a Johnny-on-the-spot Bill Bendix, a brassy Iris Adrian, and a fumbling Sig Arno who won't be table-waiting the President anytime soon. Then too, note that the ladies goody gowns are from Hollywood's premier fashion designers Edith Head and Adrian- I wonder if they did the gown that gets ripped off poor Toni.

Trouble is chuckles tail off toward the end when things serious up a bit. Also, Milland's fine for Brad's serious side, but adds little to Brad's lighter side. Nonetheless, it's an entertaining 80-minutes that gives Mussolini I good kick in the butt. So catch up with it despite the obscurity.

THE CRYSTAL BALL has such a hackneyed plot about a conniving woman out to get herself a wealthy husband (in fact, two women with the same idea), but the plot complications have serious undertones and there's not enough witty banter to make it digestible. Audiences must have been starving for light, fluffy nonsense like this during WWII, but despite some funny moments it's nothing but a predictable romantic comedy.

What does help are the performances of Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland and Virginia Field as the romantic trio. Lost in the shuffle are William Bendix, Cecil Kellaway and other supporting players who have very little to do but stand around agape at the stupid plot whose ripest comic moments include a waiter who inevitably trips and falls whenever Goddard is within close range.

Paulette is a down on her heels gal with 38 cents in her pocketbook who needs help from fortune-teller Gladys George (totally wasted). When GG becomes ill, it's Paulette who is designated to take her place as the crystal ball fortune-teller who gets involved in the budding romance between rich playboy Milland and his widowed sweetheart Field.

None of it makes any sense and the situations are played for screwball comedy effect with only a couple of successful moments where the comedy is pitched to the right key. Both stars try hard, but the material is really beneath them.

However, fans of Goddard and Milland will find it easy enough to forgive the nonsensical plot and enjoy the stars at their physical peak.

Shapely Paulette Goddard (dressed to the nines, but with only thirty-eight cents to her name) takes a job as decoy in a shooting gallery, but when the phony fortune teller she's bunking with throws her back out, Goddard subs for her at a fancy affair. Flimsy romantic fluff from Paramount studios (but acquired and released by United Artists). Though set mainly in 'ritzy' surroundings--with gowns by both Edith Head AND Adrian!--the picture appears to be a second-biller, though one given a pinch of star-power from Goddard and Ray Milland (even if the colorful supporting players tend to upstage them both). Elliott Nugent's direction has little feeling for slapstick pratfalls and comedic misunderstandings; coupled with the silly script, it isn't any wonder why the film builds no momentum. Two quirky highlights: the eccentric singing ladies on the tandem bicycle; also, Milland's sports car (a Crosley) that rocks back and forth like a toy auto. ** from ****