Paris Interlude

Of course Paris Interlude never got closer to France than MGM's back lot. It was highly doubtful that MGM would have laid out a lot of money for a B film taken from a flop play.

Laura Perelman's play All Good Americans is about a Parisian expatriate company of hard partying Americans who work at all kinds of occupations to pay the rent. It ran only 40 performances on Broadway the year before and among other people in the cast in a small part was James Stewart. I half expected F. Scott Fitzgerald to pop up in a supporting role in the film.

But the film centers around Otto Kruger with Madge Evans who's in love with him and Robert Young whom he mentors in the foreign correspondent trade. He's kind of sort of promised to marry Evans, but leaves her flat with Robert Young to comfort her while he's been transferred to American, then China.

Need I say more than eventually the course of true love takes its course in this rather sappy and old fashioned romantic melodrama.

Best in this film is Una Merkel, gal pal to Evans who's the only one who sees everything clearly and offers sound advice to one and all.

Not the best work for any of the cast except maybe Merkel.

In post-war Paris, the American community seems to be mostly composed of newspapermen like Otto Kruger and Eddie Brophy, woman writing about Paris fashion like Madge Evans and Una Merkel, and barman Ted Healy. There's also Robert Young, who's trying to be a writer without much success. Kruger and Miss Evans are in love, but he's always drunk when he proposes, and then has to fly off on some story. Then he's reported dead in China and Miss Merkel urges Young and Miss Evans to get together.

It's directed by perpetual journeyman Edwin Marin from a stage play by the Perelman's, and it's all right, but nothing great. It's clearly shot as cheaply as an MGM movie can be, and reeks more of the back lots at Culver City than Paris with the Production Code already laying its imprimatur on the film. Marin was one of those reliable directors who could turn out a perfectly satisfactory movie, but never anything great; I imagine he was one of those fellows who kept the studio busy, showed a decent financial return, and would have moved into television had he lived long enough. Instead he died in 1951 at the age of 52.

"Paris Interude" is just a factory-line MGM programmer despite it's origins from an S.J. Perelman play. This "Paris" is little more than a bar set with the occasional scene in an apartment or office. Otto Kruger is a World War I "hero" (losing one arm in the war) now a famous newspaper reporter. Trouble is the hero has little honor and literally steals stories in addition to having other people write them uncredited. He also steals girls like American tourist Madge Evans, a new romance of Robert Young's. Young "hero worships" Kruger and gladly writes his stories and steps aside so Kruger can have Evans, much to the disgust of mutual acquaintance, magazine illustrator Una Merkel, the only person who sees Kruger for what he is. Madge falls in love with Otto who is only toying with her and leaves her high and dry once he gets an offer to cover a story out of the country. Crushed and penniless, Madge is befriended by Una who gets her a job writing of Paris fashion shows for American magazines and cheered by Robert, who now realizes he is in love with her. Madge, however, is still pining for Otto but when the news comes that he his plane has been shot down in China and he is listed as dead, a devastated Madge leans more heavily on Robert and eventually falls for him as well and they plan to marry. Meanwhile, Una receives a disturbing telegram...

This romantic melodrama (with several nice comic Perelman bits) is fairly predictable at every turn and not particularly helped by the cast with the notable exception of Una Merkel, who is always a delight, here as the good friend who knows men like the back of her hand. Madge Evans is quite attractive but she's a rather lightweight actress and screen personality; it's hard to understand why MGM gave her so many more opportunities than the more talented Karen Morley or the more charismatic Anita Page. Otto Kruger was a middle-aged character actor whom MGM briefly considered star material but he's rather theatrical here, most especially in his "sick" sequence where he uses the same tiresome low-scratchy voice shtick he does in THE WOMEN IN HIS LIFE from this same period. Robert Young, on the other hand, is quite good as as the playful but heartsick friend dealing trying to deal with an unrequited love. "Paris Interlude" is a decidedly minor MGM film perilously close to a "B" movie and in truth deserves no better a grade than a C.