Rumo a Paris, Garotas!

It's hard to watch this movie and not be reminded of another movie Columbia made 5 years before, It Happened One Night. Once again Walter Connolly plays the father - or here, actually, grandfather - of a group of spoiled young adults who don't hesitate to make a mess of their and others' lives until an outsider - here, Melvyn Douglas - enters their world and brings them to their senses. As much as I enjoy his performances, Douglas was no Clark Gable, nor, as much as I enjoy her performances, was Joan Blondell another Claudette Colbert. Nor is the script as good, by a long shot. Still, it's often fun to watch. Yet another example of "the foibles of the young and spoiled," of which "It Happened...," "The Philadelphia Story," and "My Man Godfrey" are all better examples.

...and dull rom coms like this go into the vault until or unless they are exhumed by TCM for god knows what esoteric reason. Just a hymn to the un funny with, as a previous reviewer noted, a too old Joan Blondell (at least too old to be playing a college town lunchroom waitress) and a too somber Melvyn Douglas with, as another previous reviewer noted, zero chem with Joanie. Throw in the usual trying too hard performance of Walter Connolly, dialogue that is at best half ass "Philadelphia Story", and a director who is clearly uncomfortable or unfamiliar with physical comedy of any sort and you can see why this thing is best forgotten. Solid C.

PS...Googled Joan Perry, who played Silvia. Saw that she survived marriage to both Harry Cohn and Laurence Harvey. Now there's a movie I'd like to watch.

The movie is a good screw ball comedy, thanks mainly to Joan, playing a naive girl, with starry eyes.

The star she is looking for, is a rich boy, to be black-mailed, or rather it is his rich father, to get rid of a mesalliance, so that she can go to Paris with the money, as she had been reading in the Page-3 of the gossip columns, almost every other day, as she averred.

There are only two obstructions in her being able to execute the plan, the father-confessor : Exchange Professor Ronald, and her own conscience (the flutter).

Though one of the reviews compares it with the It Happened One Night.. but I don't find much similarity, neither with the Cinderella stories... since the black-mailer knew the Prince (and hence made him target) and the Prince, in fact more than one Prince, too knew that she is out to milk them (she had told that herself to them - and in fact to a train-load of passengers).

The innocent and naive role Joan could pull it brilliantly through, and that along with two ever solid performers, Melvyn and Connolly carried the movie on their shoulders. A bit of not-unmentionable part is by Alan Curtis, but except them all other, including the director or rather the story-writer, did their best to spoil it.

Isabel Jeans tried to be some sort of Billy Burke or Alice Brady (in My Man Godfrey) - with a closet Toy Boy - though not too believably, and going overboard in trying to act the type of silly woman, which Billy Burke does well. The Toy-Boy, had his own designs (though he too didn't look too convincing), nor did the first victim Stanley Brown - he was guilty (having written love-letters), but didn't look to be so when charged. His domineering father Clarence Kolb did carry his small part.

But the worst were the trio of Joan Perry (Sylvia, Ronald's betrothed), Henry Hunter (Dennis, Butler's son and Sylvia's lover) and Hickman (the butler). That was a completely hay-ware plot. About to marry Ronald, Sylvia spending nights, daily as the detective said, with Dennis. We can blame it on social morals, but what of the Butler's son and the Butler ? Not they too, certainly. And that wasn't in closet, everyone except the Groom (Melvyn) and Grandpa (Connolly) knew of it.

The behavior of these two lovers was not too explainable- even more during the accident and the aftermath. Sylvia bribed Jenny in taking the blame, but then in the confrontation, she not only told that she had blocked the cheque but also egged Jenny- almost daring her to tell the truth (though Jenny didn't) and then the complete spineless (and Coward, as Jenny told him on face, and rightly so), Dennis can't be the right one for wayward Sylvia, as the Butler father Jeffers said, nor would have the wise Grandpa agreed to the opinion.

Had these four characters (Sylvia, Dennis, Jeffers and Caroline) been better thought of, it could have been a far better movie than it is.

But still, it is entirely watchable, due to brilliance of Blondell.

Joan Blondell spent her career in average and mediocre movies. Warner Bros churned out the TV shows of that day and unfortunately for Joan, she was the studio's workhorse. In later years she often said she couldn't remember much about most of them because they were all the same, and the only thing that changed were the clothes. Her assessment is sadly true; most of them are pretty desultory.

But she got a chance to shine with 'Good Girls Go To Paris' and the results are spectacular!

Jenny Swanson is one of the great characters of '30s films, a girl who moves through life purely on the surface, showing only the most superficial understanding of each situation in which she finds herself. But that 'public face' is only her defense. It conceals her real person, deeply understanding, able to perceive the problems of the people around her, pierce their defenses with ease, and dominate the proceedings to bring about the most satisfactory solution. No man can resist her brilliant personality, as one after the other they fall madly in love with her - even the cold millionaire, played brilliantly by Walter Connelly, is vanquished by Jenny's honesty and charm. None of these poor men have a chance!

All time great romantic comedy.

This does start off pretty badly, well very badly but then, all of a sudden it turns into something really good and very funny. So don't get fooled by the false start, stick with it. If you liked TOPPER and MY MAN GODFREY, you'll probably enjoy this as well.

The beginning is not promising - in fact, after ten minutes of cringingly awful stereotypes, I nearly switched this off. I'm glad I kept with it because it switched from being a tiresome corny comedy set in the world's most sexist university (you ladies are here to serve the young gentlemen not to distract them by showing them your legs etc. Etc.) to a fast, well written, well acted witty comedy of errors.

I wasn't too sure at first about Joan Blondell's character: on one hand she's blatantly setting out to blackmail the young gentlemen (who all look like they're in their 30s) yet also innocent and naive. Her character makes no sense - how can such a calculating schemer be so genuinely sweet? Well she can't, you just have to park that gaping plot hole in the darkest recesses of your mental garage which you can because Joan Blondell plays this impossible character so well.

As she stands directly in front of their faces, looking straight into their eyes, smiling and fluttering her eyelashes, it's perfectly obvious that she's got that confidence, that ability to turn a man to jelly. She does it without trying, without even knowing what she's doing. It's quite an interesting change of character for her and she does it remarkably well. I'm not sure anyone else could make such an unbelievable character so believable and of course likeable.

Once it gets going, it's got a feel of MY MAN GODFREY about it. Unlike most of those so-called screwball comedies, this one is actually funny. Although this is very much a Joan Blondell movie, the real star is Walter Connolly. A lot of reviews have commented that he horribly overacts in this but so what - so did Basil Fawlty! Don't know why but when he exclaims: 'What kind of house is this that doesn't have a herring?' I laughed out loud. Out of context that just sounds weird doesn't it - but just watch it, it's great, stupid but great.

Two frivolous observations: 1) Joan Blondell's dress is (sadly) not as short as it is in the poster. 2) Walter Connolly looks absolutely identical to the 'matured' Mr Scott from 1980s Star Trek movies.