The Song You Gave Me

Bebe Daniels stars in this 1933 British film, playing Mitzi Hansen, a stage star who hires a male secretary (Victor Varconi) and falls for him. But he won't reciprocate because she's his boss. Slim plot, but films boasts a couple decent songs and of course Bebe Daniels as star.

Along for the ride are a trio of would-be lovers (Claude Hulbert, Frederick Lloyd, and Lester Matthews), a catty co-star (Iris Ashley), and a grandmother (Eva Moore).

There's also an extended marionette show (why, is anyone's guess) with a badly dubbed Varconi supposedly providing the voices.

Daniels is terrific and looks even better. She's beautifully dressed and photographed with lots of backlighting, which provides a glowing sparkle to scenes. Varconi is rather dull. Of the supporting cast, Hulbert and Ashley are fun. And yes that's Stewart Granger, in his first screen appearance, as the waiter.

. . . how much better it would have been had it been made by Paramount, had starred Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier, and had been directed by Lubitsch or Mamoulian. This British effort makes a stab at the genre, but lacks the necessary vivacity. It is almost as if they were afraid of being saucy, when sauciness was the very essence of the piece. Some of the blame must lie with the casting of the male lead. Victor Varconi is too stolid (one might almost say stodgy) for a role which would have been better played with an air of sans souci. An extended marionette scene is so out of place as to suggest padding, when this sort of plot needs to proceed at a romping pace.

Bebe Daniels plays Mitzi Hansen, a successful singer and stage performer. She has a retinue of three, including Claude Hulbert, quite amusing in his inimitable fashion and Lester Matthews, soon to make a permanent move to Hollywood, but quite what they're doing there is never made clear, perhaps just hangers-on. Their fawning is to no avail as she becomes intrigued with Victor Varconi, who becomes her secretary.

Billed as a musical on a recent DVD release, this is more accurately a romantic comedy with musical interludes. The dialogue is occasionally slightly saucy for the era, as is a scene where Bebe pretends she's in a clinch with another man in her bedroom, to try and get a reaction from Varconi and a song called I'm For Sale, sung by the attractive Iris Ashley. There are a couple of compositions by Robert Stolz, one sung by Walter Widdop, a leading English tenor of the day and Stolz's fellow Austrian, director Paul Stein, brings a hint of middle Europe to the proceedings, including a marionette show. This is very much Bebe Daniels' film though, and on this showing it's a shame her future movies were so few and far between.

Been Daniel's had a number of phases to her career.Firstly she appeared in over 220 films in America.In the early thirties she came to England because of the kidnapping of the Lindbergh child as she felt it was safer for her son Richard.Here she became more of a stage actress till the war when she started a radio show with her husband Ben Lyon,called Hi Gang.After the war it became Life With The Lyons and was an early BBC TV sitcom.This is one of the few films that she made in this country.The actress character she plays here is not so different from the one she played in 42nd Street.In this film she really is the whole show.She does sing a couple of pleasant songs.However this is a rather undistinguished film which doesn't linger in the memory.