Pre-Code Fun With Chevalier and Baby LeRoy
Baby LeRoy gets more close-ups than anybody in this sentimental romance, but he has plenty of competition in hogging the camera from Maurice Chevalier, though oddly limited to only a few songs and those mainly forgettable.
The film's plot revolves around an abandoned child found in the back of a playboy's limo, soon becoming the center of attention as the kid charms Maurice, who attempts to explain away his sudden appearance to several irate sweethearts.
There's a funny and even slightly suspenseful scene as manservant Edward Everett Horton attempts to shave his master, discovering as he does so that Chevalier has unknowingly "dated" his wife--Horton delivers a very close and nervously fingered shave!
The Ever-Winsome Helen Twelvetrees, dazzlingly blond, first hired as a temporary nurse for the tot, names him Robin and then falls for the boss, who is already promised to another. Complications ensue, along with the kind of suggestive mating humor that would come to a halt one year later with code enforcement.
Not a great comic masterpiece, but easy-going. And a rather sweet little fable if one can deal with an over-abundance of Baby Leroy shots--grinning, making faces, sleeping, but not yet old enough to be obnoxious--that happened a year later with W. C. Fields in The Old Fashioned Way, a rural delight not to be missed!
The film's plot revolves around an abandoned child found in the back of a playboy's limo, soon becoming the center of attention as the kid charms Maurice, who attempts to explain away his sudden appearance to several irate sweethearts.
There's a funny and even slightly suspenseful scene as manservant Edward Everett Horton attempts to shave his master, discovering as he does so that Chevalier has unknowingly "dated" his wife--Horton delivers a very close and nervously fingered shave!
The Ever-Winsome Helen Twelvetrees, dazzlingly blond, first hired as a temporary nurse for the tot, names him Robin and then falls for the boss, who is already promised to another. Complications ensue, along with the kind of suggestive mating humor that would come to a halt one year later with code enforcement.
Not a great comic masterpiece, but easy-going. And a rather sweet little fable if one can deal with an over-abundance of Baby Leroy shots--grinning, making faces, sleeping, but not yet old enough to be obnoxious--that happened a year later with W. C. Fields in The Old Fashioned Way, a rural delight not to be missed!
- museumofdave
- Jul 3, 2022