A Parigi nell'ombra

Constance Bennett tells her old governess that the Germans will never take Paris, but Gracie Fields bundles her into her saloon car and they try to get out, along with an English flyer who winds up with them. However, the German infantry blocks their route and escorts them back to Bennett's home. Fortunately, her husband George Rigaud has connection with the burgeoning Underground, so it's back to the coast.... where through a mishap, the flier winds up getting away, but the women don't. Another effort to get out with another captured flier goes well.... so they decide to stay and go into the business of smuggling out fallen British fliers.

It's a beautifully written script for star Constance Bennett, as she gradually goes from a self-centered playgirl in a failing marriage to someone who actually cares and does something about it. Gracie also gives a fine performance, but it's a supporting one. She had spent five years trying to parlay her stardom in Britain into one in Hollywood. The result was four roles, good ones, but after playing love interest for Monty Woolly, and now governess to Constance Bennett (in reality six years her junior), she and husband Monty Banks decided to pack it up and return to the music halls where she was a welcome sight until the end of her days.

Miss Bennett had also reached the end of her career as a glamorous movie star. Over the next twenty years, she would appear in only seven more movies; the less revealing gaze of the television camera and stage footlights would be her professional home.

The timing of this film is unfortunate. It came out in October, 1945--several months after the war in Europe had ended. Had it come out during the war, it would have been an excellent propaganda film for the folks at home. Instead, it just seems a bit odd to come out when it did.

As far as the casting goes, it IS unusual. Constance Bennett plays the lead and over the years she tended to play a variety of rich society ladies. Co-starring is Gracie Fields, a British music hall singer and comedienne. It's a strange pairing but it worked..particularly since they de-glamorized Bennett for the part.

The story begins just as France is falling to the Nazis in 1940. An American woman (Bennett) and her companion (Fields) are trapped in Paris. They also accidentally come upon a pilot of a downed British plane...and through this help to create an underground organization which repatriates pilots through the course of the war. Naturally, the Germans are more than a bit anxious to catch them.

The film's biggest strength might just be because it came out when it did. Instead of snarly, over-the-top Nazis, the Germans in this one are more believable than ones you would have seen in films just a short time earlier. Plus, a restrained performance by Bennett (one of her better ones actually) help to make this an enjoyable and well made film.

Paris Underground is the US title for the British film originally titled Madame Pimpernel. Hollywood distributors were pretty savvy about advertising and marketing these types of films, and thought that Madame Pimpernel was a bit too obscure for the vast majority of American film viewers. They were most likely right on the money. Both Constance Bennett and Gracie Fields give outstanding performances in a film basically carried by two leading female characters; a real rarity in film, and almost a non-existent rarity in Hollywood. That is why Bennett had the film produced in England; a very wise move.

The story of two women in Paris in the early days of Paris occupation by the Germans is quite a compelling story. One marvels at the dramatic effectiveness of Gracie FIelds, who would become much better known for her teaming with George Burns for classic US television comedy. FIelds carries off the dramatic role without missing a beat. Bennett is also very effective. George Rigaud does a competent job as the French husband of Fields in Paris, as his wife begins a series of underground adventures, rescuing over 200 fallen airmen, one at a time, over a period of years, until the American liberation of Paris. Although the film has a few stops and starts, and the conclusion occurs faster than a German blitzkrieg, the main body of the film is very entertaining and is very solid. Don't miss it.

This is much better than it seems. It appears to be a rather flimsy female travesty on "Pied Piper", two ladies in Paris getting stuck in the war and unvoluntarily becoming involved in smuggling British pilots and spies out of the country, an enterprise they carry on successfully, until they are caught and taken under treatment by the Gestapo; but the story is actually quite good, one of the ladies, the American one (Constance Bennett) being married to a Frenchman, the film starting with their quarrelling, but he plays an important part throughout the film and adds to the dramatic thriller of the finale. It is well made with a great score by Alexander Tanzman, and although much of it may seem rather petty and over-wrought with female concerns, it is worth waiting for the development of the drama.

In a late example of a fading Hollywood star going to England for a career boost, delectable Constance Bennett plays a madcap, irresponsible Yankee stuck in occupied France. She's uses her glam appeal to aid the resistance & help Allied troops escape with the help of co-hort Gracie Fields, the Brit Music Hall star in her final screen perf. The whole unlikely enterprise is done with reasonable flair under surprisingly lively direction from Gregory Ratoff and stellar lighting from lenser Lee Garmes. Too bad no one was able to turn the corner for the last act when the film tries for a darker, more serious tone, but it's well worth a gander. As is the still jolie Mme Bennett.