Adieu Paris, bonjour New-York

Perhaps it made sense from a commercial standpoint: bringing a great lady of the opera, Lili Pons, to a level at which the public could more easily relate to her - perhaps even to identify with her in some respects. The result, ideally, would have been to create a leading lady in films who sang divinely as she was surrounded by "us." Miss Pons gave it her best try - here and elsewhere - but it just didn't work. Most unfortunately, the filmmakers effort to generate the common touch involved presenting her in the most commonplace outfits, makeup and coiffure, downplaying the "glamour" associated with grand opera. Supporting her with the buffoonery of Jack Oakie and his cohorts, having her hiding under blankets, climbing here and there, etc. doesn't register either. Though no beauty, Lili Pons can radiate elegance and charm (along with her great vocalizing), as she does, in full costume, when she sings "Una voce poco fa" in this picture. Her movies don't give us enough of the Lili Pons that made her a stage presence, and might have made her a screen presence. To have her play against (her own) type - here and elsewhere - was a mistake.

It does have one scene of note. Pons plays an opera singer hiding out with a jazz band. The band knows nothing of her identity. She sabotages their singer (Lucille Ball in an early role) and is forced to go on stage as a substitute. Well, she only knows opera; the band only knows jazz. She sings "The Blue Danube" with both her and the band segueing from classical singing to jazz and back. It's a really delightful number, very inventive. If the movie is ever on TCM or AMC, it's work a look just for that

If That Girl From Paris was made today there would be protesters at the screenings as Lily Pons is quite the illegal alien. I could just see the Donald leading a picket line protesting the fact that the heroine is a woman who stows away on ship to come to America and then is ready to get a marriage of convenience to stay here.

Not liking the arranged marriage she's been hammerlocked into Lily hooks up with a touring swing band consisting of Gene Raymond, Mischa Auer, Frank Jenks, and Jack Oakie. Of course all that doesn't sit well with Lucille Ball, affianced to Raymond and getting some of the best lines in the film.

Pons has some good numbers in all genres of music including a swing version of the Blue Danube Waltz and highlighting with her character's Metropolitan Opera debut in the Barber Of Seville.

This film was made right after Grace Moore scored such a success in One Night Of Love for Columbia Pictures. Studios went out and signed up opera singers, Lily Pons was RKO's catch. The vogue came and went quickly, this was Lily's second feature film after I Dream Too Much. She would do one more Hitting A New High and then she would return to the Metropolitan Opera for real.

But I'm glad some of these voices like Lily Pons recorded their art for posterity in films like That Girl From Paris.

This is really a wonderful surprise, a charmingly contrived, irresistibly tune-filled operetta, made for RKO in 1936, directed by Leigh Jason. It was intended as a vehicle for its star, Lily Pons, playing the role of a Parisian opera star Nikki Martin that flees her wedding and becomes a stowaway hiding in a ship compartment occupied by an American Jazz band. Nikki meets and falls in love with the band leader Windy McLean (Gene Raymond) and she travels with his band from France to America.

Ms. Pons was a superior opera star of its time and "That Girl From Paris" is all hers, though other players, Jackie Oakie, Gene Raymond, Lucille Ball, Mischa Auer, Hermann Bing are all exceptionally good as well. Tall, willowy, coolly complacent (some would say stand-offish), Ms. Pons was no beauty like Jeanette MacDonald or Grace Moore, but she is endowed with an overpoweringly deep, searing opera voice that would put both Jeanette & Grace to shame. As much as the studio is promoting its opera star, RKO is also including as much classical & jazz music as possible and for this, it succeeds.

Much of the movie's charm & vivacity seems to run out of gas in the last fifteen minutes or so as the filmmakers try to endow the contrived scenario with a happy, forced ending, but everything before it was a sheer delight.

Opera great Lily Pons plays a French singer who flees the altar looking for adventure and true love and ends up joining an American swing band (their hopped up version of "The Blue Danube" is a real treat). As charming as it is silly, the film is memorable for the way Pons bursts into song. Her version of "Una Voce Poco Fa" shows why she was such a magnificent stage presence. It's a shame that charisma did not quite make it on screen in the three movies she make for RKO (the other two being "I Dream Too Much" with Henry Fonda, 1935, and "Hitting a New High" 1937). Also notable is Lucille Ball's funny dance scene in which her character is sabotaged with soaped up dancing shoes, causing her to slip and fall every time she tries to dance; only a well trained dancer could have pulled it off.