The Girl in the Taxi

Raimu, no less, came to Ealing to play the hypocritical bluestocking (described by one of his lady friends as "the original sugar daddy") in the French version of this saucy comedy with songs directed by André Berthomieu (signed in the French style simply as 'Berthomieu'), but in this Anglophone version his role is taken by Lawrence Grossmith. It served it's purpose, however, as the Hollywood calling card of supervisor Kurt Bernhardt.

Henri Garat is the only actor in both versions, but you hardly notice that he's in it. Billed above the title, blonde thirties West End bombshell Frances Day registers far more strongly, along with a wry Helen Haye as the old goat's quietly knowing wife.

Laurence Grossmith's Paris Purity League awards Frances Day their award for good works by mistake the same day Grossmith's daughter, Jean Gillie, becomes engaged to Henri Garat. They all meet at the Moulin Rouge, when Grossmith's son, Mackenzie Ward, takes Miss Day there; Grossmith is well known at that place as a sugar daddy.

It's based on Georg Okonkowski's operetta, and the director is André Berthomieu, who directed the French version almost simultaneously. It's a fluffy effort, in which most of the songs are dropped, and the extreme and distracting Art Deco set design is the main star. Miss Day is quite enchanting as a platinum blonde, leading the one big dance number. In the end, the nonsense is solved by Helen Haye, as Grossmith's wife, serenely lying her head off. It's directed for speed in order to make it amusing, and it almost works.

I enjoyed this movie. I started watching with no expectations but found myself laughing out loud to some of the gags and twists towards the end. A truly enjoyable romp that got me away from modern day hassles for 90 minutes. It's refreshing to see a simpler lifestyle but still on a grand scale. I know this was based on an operetta but the singing parts were difficult to follow with the sound quality I watched and the absence of subtitles. The film could have gotten by without the musical element. I hate to leave spoilers in any review but I will give a slight hint...the character that you think has the most pointless role in the film actually has the strongest contribution and ties the storyline together perfectly with just one piece of dialogue.