Le gai mensonge

Frances Dee plays a poor stenographer who enters a sweepstakes, wins$ 5.000 (the first prize), after which she's determined to live in a big way as long as her money lasts. She arrives at a fancy NY Hotel and meets a devil-may-care prince masquerading as a bellboy, charmingly played by Francis Lederer.

The chemistry between the two leads is excellent and although the plot is a mild frou-frou, Cinderella-type of story, it's played with uttermost sincerity and naturalness by the two leads, thanks to a deft direction by master Wyler. Frances Dee's talent and charm deserves to be widely rediscovered and properly recognized.

Fun romp with dashing Francis Lederer and lovely Frances Dee.

This is the kind of screwball movie that Hollywood can never make again. We have become too jaded, too complicated, too sophisticated.

You know the ending way before it comes, but the ride is full of smiles and giggles and silly surprises that will make your insides gurgle with joy and harken you gently into a more innocent time.

William Wyler's direction is nearly flawless. He wasn't Bette Davis' favorite director for nothing. It seems that he could do most anything.

Also, watch for the wonderfully goofy Lennox Pawle, stately Alan Mowbray and instantly recognizable Akim Tamiroff in one of the many roles that made their faces well-known but not necessarily their identities household names.

Sit back and take it in. Smile. You deserve it.

When office worker "Mirabel" (Frances Dee) scoops $5,000 in the state lottery, she decides to ignore the bank manager's advice to invest and heads to New York for a luxury stay. She is suitably fêted by the hotel staff, but soon finds her trip to this metropolis where she knows nobody a bit lonely. The only friend she seems to make is the elevator boy (Francis Lederer). He notices that she's not having the best time and determines to make her feel better. Thing is, he has a bit of a secret to keep and though that could ultimately help their budding romance, he needs to keep it for now and that's where their problems start. It's all a little predictable, sure, but there is quite an engaging effort from Lederer (and he resists any temptation to burst into song) and there are a few swipes at the posh, pompous and supercilious amongst the so-called glittering society types who couldn't spot a prince from a porcupine. "The customer is always right!"? Who ever came up with that stupid policy?

This is the first of a 3-movie tribute (though I own a number of his other efforts that remain unwatched) which I will be undertaking on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of distinguished (if not a personal favorite) director Wyler's passing. Despite an unfortunate title – which, at this juncture, makes it sound like a biopic of Rock Hudson (or even John Travolta)! – this is an unassuming but nice addition to the spate of sophisticated/crazy romantic comedies to emerge during Hollywood's Golden Age (thematically, it recalls James Whale's equally delightful BY CANDLELIGHT {1934}). Wyler would display this kind of light touch only sporadically throughout his career (for the record, my viewing of its not-too-dissimilar predecessor THE GOOD FAIRY from the same year is upcoming), mainly losing himself in significant solemnity thereafter: while this may have won him numerous accolades over the years, it certainly did not endear him to critics who abided by the auteur theory!

Anyway, the central casting here seems second-rate upon a preliminary glance but Frances Dee proves appealingly gauche along the way (as a small-town girl who, having won $5000 in a melon contest{!}, tries to pass herself off as a society woman while on a New York spending spree), whereas Francis Lederer is a revelation: best-known for playing sinister types (as in Jean Renoir's masterful THE DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID {1946} and the low-budget but inventive THE RETURN OF Dracula {1958}) or suave aristocratic seducers (notably Mitchell Leisen's sparkling MIDNIGHT {1939}), he retains the latter qualities here – in the role of the prince of a fictional Middle-European country posing as a hotel bell-boy! – but invests the character with quick-witted cunning and infectious charm.

The scene is thus set for a multitude of complications: Dee is misguidedly feted by the hotel staff, though still shunned by the true elite (exemplified by Benita Hume – Ronald Colman's wife – and Alan Mowbray) who can spot her modest origins a mile off; Lederer's savoir faire attitude belies his assumed rank (and even lands him in trouble with his 'superiors': forever losing his job, he then has his country's N.Y. embassy pull the necessary strings in order to get him reinstated!), while also initially putting the ingenuous heroine ill-at-ease. The eccentric, child-like ambassador himself (DAVID COPPERFIELD {1935}'s Lennox Pawle) has his hands full trying to keep Lederer's ruse a secret from a couple of investors of dubious morals (Lionel Stander and Akim Tamiroff) – so that, when taking Dee to a ball under his real guise and ostensibly exposed as a fraud, having had to assemble his officious wardrobe from bits and pieces belonging to various people at the hotel (including ubiquitous character actors Luis Alberni and Robert Greig), Pawle cannot vouch for the prince, and the latter is thus thrown in jail! An earnest Dee tries to intervene, believing Lederer had done this grand gesture for her sake…but, upon being revealed for what he really is, she feels used by him and flees in humiliation, intent on going back home. The inevitable last-scene reconciliation, then, is brought on by the simple (i.e. idealized) act of having the hero sneak into the leading lady's room dressed-up once again in a bell-boy's uniform!

I love Wyler. People never talk about him regardless of the fact that he directed the best epic movie ever, Ben Hur, one of the best rom-coms ever Roman Holiday, and classics like The Best Years of Our Lives and Funny Girl.

he Gay Deception, like Roman Holiday, is a tale about a royalty wanting to be a normal, everyday person like everyone else. He ends up falling in love with a girl who on the other hand wants to be royalty, if only for one month, after she wins the lottery.

No prize for guessing the ending. But Wyler too knows the audience knows how the story will be resolved - so he makes every joke count. Every meeting is a delightful clash of the opposites, with fast witted dialogue and hilarious performances, especially by Lederer, whom I have never seen this funny.

If you look closely, you will notice small jokes with open references to sex and things impure that the Production Code was against and did not allow. This isn't It Happened One Night, but it's a nice film that will make you smile.