La peur du scandale

Kay Winters (Carole Lombard) is vacationing in Europe under the name Kay Summers; she is a famous movie star from Hollywood but wants to avoid crowds. She runs into an attractive young man named Rene (Fernand Gravet) who is on route to a party of a mutual friend, but neither know of this connection. They decide to skip the party altogether and spend the evening dining out. After a delightful night, the two decide to see each other again, but Kay is all set to return to the states. Her love keeps her, though, and she and Rene meet. Soon, love turns sour for the couple and Rene does all he can to create a scandal for Kay. He takes a job as the cook in her home and before long the whole town is swarming with rumors about Kay's new beau.

This film starts out strong, wanes a bit in the middle, and then ends in a fit of laughter. Of course Lombard is best known for her ability with a comedic story, and this film is no exception. Gravet is quite impressive too. He is hysterical in the dinner scene where he does all he can to break up Kay and her fiancée (Ralph Bellamy).

Fernand Gravey is a Marquis in Paris, but he has no money. He runs into movie star Carole Lombard and follows her back to London. What with one thing and another, he and pals Allen Jenkins and Marie Wilson wind up as servants in her household, much to the discomfiture of Miss Lombard's would-be fiance, Ralph Bellamy and the gossipy delight of all London.

There are problems with the production, chief among them the discarding of most of a Richard Rogers-Lorenz Hart set of songs and the rushing of the ending. Yet there are some perfect comedy set pieces, particularly the scene in which Gravey, Jenkins and Miss Wilson serve dinner to Bellamy and Miss Lombard.

It was the last movie that Mervyn Leroy directed at Warner Brothers before he jumped to MGM. He had entered Hollywood as a relative of Jesse Lasky. After a series of back lot jobs, he directed his first movie in 1928 and was off and running. He died in 1987, aged 86.

American actress (Carole Lombard) visiting Paris meets a penniless Frenchman (Fernand Gravet). He becomes smitten with her and pursues her for the rest of the movie. This doesn't sit well with her dull American beau (Ralph Bellamy).

Carole Lombard tries too hard in this to overcompensate for the weak script by acting like she's in one of her other (better) screwball comedies. She shouts a lot, for some reason, and it's annoying. She is beautiful, though. French actor Fernand Gravet has no chemistry with Lombard and seems ill-suited to being a leading man. It doesn't help matters that he's French yet has a nasally English accent. Presumably this is because Gravet was raised in England. Ralph Bellamy is fine in a role he was very used to by this time. Poor Ralph Bellamy. His career was built on playing the boring nice guy who gets thrown over for the more exciting, flirtatious guy. Nice support from Allen Jenkins, Marie Wilson, and Isabel Jeans. A huge box office flop when released, it's considered by many Lombard fans today to be her worst movie. It's not very funny, that's for sure.

This film is described in Carole Lombard's biography by Larry Swindell as "one of the horrendous flops of the thirties decade" and by Photoplay as "inane" and "pointless". I must say that I was expecting something as horrendous as Carole's 1933 movie "White Woman", but was pleasantly surprised to find this an endearing, lighthearted romp. The actors seemed to enjoy themselves and recognize that they were not filming Shakespeare, but a screwball comedy. The scenes are varied and interesting, the action moves along at a bright pace and things are anything but dull, including a surprise ending to top things off.

The only criticism I can make is that Carole does seem to shout her lines for some unknown reason. I assume this is the director's fault. And the overall tone of the movie should probably have been toned down and played with more sophistication in spots to give the film a little more class. In a few places it almost goes over the top into a "Three Stooges" mode. Ralph Bellamy really made me laugh a few times. However, Carole has never been more beautiful, and I was not turned off by Fernand Gravet's performance as so many seemed to have been at the time. Come on, no ones perfect. If this film had been made a few years earlier in her career, I think it could easily have been a classic.

The only thing I can't figure out is why Carole Lombard playing a movie star very much like Carole Lombard in Fools For Scandal is why she was going out with a drip like Ralph Bellamy in the first place? Can someone answer that question? I can't imagine her ever coming in contact with him except to buy insurance.

Fools For Scandal has Lombard over in Paris where she meets a penniless count played by Fernand Gravey who gets by on wit, charm and little else. He encounters Lombard and manages to charm his way into her household and he turns out to be a pretty good cook. The man has a way with Crepe Suzettes.

Of course this continental charmer is good also at getting Ralph Bellamy's goat. But that's the whole idea. Bellamy gets more than a few laughs with his exasperation.

Fools For Scandal is not one of Lombard's really great films, but it certainly will satisfy her legion of fans. There's also nice parts for Marie Wilson as Lombard's maid as her usual vacuous self and Allen Jenkins who is Gravey's American friend from Brooklyn.

Now how did those two get together?