The Lady in Question

Andre Morestan (Brian Aherne) owns a Paris bicycle shop with his family. He's eager to serve in a jury. The trial has Natalie Roguin (Rita Hayworth) facing a murder charge. Andre convinces the jury to acquit. After the trial, he gives her a job at his shop. He keeps her identity a secret from his family but his son Pierre (Glenn Ford) recognizes her. His daughter Francois is overjoyed to be engaged to Robert LaCoste who owns the dance studio next door. Robert turns out to be a lascivious sleaze with his eye on Natalie.

It's a lesser old movie. The acting is broad and so are the attempts at humor. This is a remake of a French film and I'm sure a ton of jokes don't get through the translation. The trial takes place in the first thirty minutes. Andre is a childish considering the situation. It seems to be aimed as a comedy but it's not funny. After Natalie gets the job, there are some sitcom-like misunderstandings. Again it's not funny but it's still watchable. The movie feels short-changed and the shorter running time may have something to do with that.

Interesting that Columbia teamed GLENN FORD and RITA HAYWORTH six years before GILDA made them such a hot romantic combination, in a rather tepid courtroom tale that's an uneven mix of comedy and drama and barely allowed the sparks to fly between Ford and Hayworth.

Actually, it's BRIAN AHERNE who gets top billing as the Parisian shop owner who sits in on a murder trial and finds himself falling for "the lady in question". Aherne plays the man as a naively foolish individual who looks forward with childish glee to jury duty--and then manages to convince the others that Rita is not guilty of murder.

EVELYN KEYES plays his equally flighty daughter and IRENE RICH is his sensible wife. GLENN FORD is his attractive and reasonably sensible son.

It soon becomes apparent that all of the courtroom scenes are going to be played for comedy rather than drama. LLOYD CORRIGAN and GEORGE COULOURIS play opposing lawyers with comic skill and CURT BOIS does an amusing job as a fellow juror who takes an instant dislike to Aherne when he's accidentally splashed with water and then becomes his amusing adversary for the rest of the story.

But the spotlight is mainly on BRIAN AHERNE and he easily walks off with the film as the bumbling shop owner who begins to think that perhaps he shouldn't have talked the other jurors into freeing Rita, after she has an affair with his son whom he finds has stolen some money in order to leave with her. Aherne had a flair for comedy that is really given the spotlight here.

There's a clever plot twist at the end in which Aherne realizes how wrong he's been about everything.

RITA HAYWORTH shows promise in a rather uninteresting role that doesn't allow her to do more than look like a decorative leading lady and GLENN FORD is clearly not yet the movie star he would become. Both have relatively minor roles compared to Aherne.

Summing up: Interesting oddity is strange mixture of comedy and drama.

The Lady in Question is noted in cinema history as the first film to feature both Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. However it's not their film, both are second and third billed respectively below Brian Aherne.

Columbia Pictures remade the French film Gibouille which had been done the year earlier with Raimu and Michele Morgan in the roles that Aherne and Rita had. In fact Gibouille was what launched Michele Morgan's career in French cinema.

Knowing that I think a lot of the film's humor and innuendo probably got lost on the transatlantic voyage. Aherne is a bicycle shop owner who has been picked for jury duty and is determined to take his responsibilities quite seriously. He gets on a case with Rita as a defendant who is accused of murdering her fiancé. Aherne's questions to her and his forceful advocacy of her, earn Rita an acquittal.

But Brian's not finished. He offers to give her any kind of help she needs because while she has a legal acquittal, she's got a reputation like O.J.'s. Aherne takes her in which causes all kinds of complications with his wife, Irene Rich, son Glenn Ford, daughter Evelyn Keyes, and her fiancé Edward Norris.

The Lady in Question is probably done in by the infamous Code firmly in place in Hollywood. Stuff that the French cinema could and did do, were forbidden here. Columbia also had to keep it in the French setting because of the differences between their jury system and our's.

Still Rita and Glenn do shine together, although no one I'm sure would ever have predicted their mega-hit Gilda six years later. Actually Edward Norris has the nicest performance as the no good rat of a fiancé that Keyes has, who tries to put the make on Rita.

It's a pleasant enough film, but I'm betting the original French version must be infinitely better.

This is the sort of dramatic comedy the French knew how to do superbly, but Hollywood was unable to carry off in 1940. Blame it on censorship. The original 1937 French film starred the great tragic comic actor, Raimu, famous for his work in Marcel Pagnol's Marseilles comedies. Brian Aherne, a fine actor, is still too much of the English matinee idol, too young too thin to play pater familias roles, although he tries. This was a role for an older man. Edward G. Robinson might have gotten in right. Rita Hayward is as always lovely and believable. Glenn Ford is only the juvenile in this one. A few years later both would have their great successes together. Harry Cohn took a chance on this one.

Having seen (and commented on for IMDb) the more recent movie by the same title with Gene Wilder, I wanted to watch the 1940 movie to see if there was any resemblance between the two. There was none. Although I am less qualified to evaluate this movie, considering it was made eight years before I was born, I must say it seemed to me that this court-room mystery could not make up its mind whether it wanted to be a comedy or a serious drama. There were alternating comedic and serious touches which I believe detracted from the overall enjoyment of the film. However, the story was enjoyable for a one-time viewing. Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford were familiar to me. Brian Aherne was unfamiliar to me in name, but I believe I recognized him from other movies. He reminded me a little of blustering William Powell in "Life with Father," a movie I cannot stand. It seemed to me the wife could have seen through the father's stories a lot sooner, the silliness of the daughter was overdone, and the scenes with Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth could have been more revealing as to their true feelings for each other. The pairing of the daughter with the fat boy was predictable. And I don't know that the real truth about Rita Hayworth's character really made all that much difference in the end. But these are just my opinions, and I'm glad to say I was able to view the film this once.