Sur la Riviera

Kaye won a Golden Globe for his great performance in dual roles as a military giant and an entertainer who tries to win the love of Gene Tierney. A fun filled musical comedy with great dancing and the always unstoppable Kaye, doing what he does best.

"The Red Cat" was a Broadway play. It was back Darryl Zanuck and brought to the screen almost immediately as "Folies Bergère de Paris" and then, within a short time, remade it as "A Night in Rio" and now here in "On the Riviera"! And, if that isn't enough, the basic story idea of this script is very familiar--using one of Hollywood's oldest clichés--the 'identical stranger'. Like "The Prisoner of Zenda" and "The Prince and the Pauper", this movie hinges on the audience accepting that this is possible. In other words, if you can't accept this, the film will be rough sailing.

In this version, the lead is played by the talented Danny Kaye--who sings and dances up a storm. Now if you like singing and dancing, you're in luck. If you don't, then once again it will be rough sailing. My problems is that I am not a huge musical fan. There are, of course, exceptions. Kaye plays dual roles--a singer/dancer as well as a famous French aviator. The humor begins, such as it is, when the aviator is in London and he's needed in Paris--so, reluctantly, the actor/dancer is paid to pretend to be the aviator. The acting is quite good but the story is just too old and too familiar to make the story anything other than a time-passer.

By the way, while I wasn't all that impressed by this film, I must say that the special features on the DVD for the film are terrific--and actually make watching it worth while. I especially liked "The Rivera Story", as it showed side-by-side comparisons of the three films--and they were often word-for-word the same picture.

On the Riviera is the third film made from a stage play called The Red Cat, the other two being L'homme des Folies Bergère (1935) with Maurice Chevalier and That Night in Rio (1941) with Don Ameche. The plot is an example of a genre that goes right back to Plautus and Shakespeare: the comedy and confusion that result when two people who happen to look identical keep getting mistaken for each other. In this case, the two people (both played by Danny Kaye) are a famous French transatlantic aviator and an American entertainer playing a club on the French Riviera. This seems like a very obscure film: it's not found in any of the half-dozen standard film guides I happen to have, though it's in IMDb.

The film, directed by Hollywood workmanlike director Walter Lang (who made a number of other 50s musicals, like this one now mostly forgotten,) is a semi-musical; that is, there are plenty of song and dance numbers, but they are all stage performances. The most interesting aspect of the film is its display of Kaye's multiple talents as a singer, dancer, comic and impressionist -- he's the sort of performer popular in the thirties through early sixties, but now seems an almost extinct species.

The film is an interesting period piece for its sumptuous female fashions and as an early example of what would become mainstream American Hollywood musical entertainment, and if you are interested in those topics, or in Kaye, this will be worth watching. Others may find it only moderately entertaining. There is some impressive landscape photography of the Riviera, though Hitchcock did this better in To Catch a Thief.

The 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Blu-Ray DVD is of good audio and video quality.

My axiom is that any movie featuring Gene Tierney deserves to be viewed, and "On the Riviera" is one of them. The plot is a moderately funny comedy of errors, with Danny Kaye in the roles of an American cabaret-entertainer and of his double, a French hero-aviator. The acting is generally good. The photography is accurate, with bright, spirit-raising colors, worthy of the beauties of the Cote d' Azur (but the movie appears to have been largely made elsewhere). Kaye performs a number of nice, though longish, ballets. Gene Tierney has the opportunity to show her talent just in one scene, when she is uncertain whether she has slept with her actual husband, the pilot, or with his American double (by the way: a bit salacious situation for the early fifties, isn't it?). With her usual professionalism, Gene doesn't steal the show to the pretty Corinne Calvet, who in fact has a larger role. In any case, as soon as Gene appears on the screen, the movie soars: the splendor of her eyes obscures the sky and sea of Provence. After all, "On the Riviera" is an enjoyable movie, especially for fans of old classics.

I can't imagine why anyone would dislike this marvelous film. Danny Kaye does a superb job playing a double role, showing a subtlety of acting ability that some might not have thought he had. He is not, for once, cast like a complete fool. Don't get me wrong; he plays those parts well, and is often hysterically funny, as in The Inspector General and The Court Jester. In that picture he does get to play a part that is not a fool, as he is hypnotized into thinking himself a swashbuckling hero, but it is a role that calls for him to lampoon the part he is playing. In On The Riviera, however, he plays a genuine masterful leading male role: a millionaire French airplane manufacturer with a gorgeous wife who is worth the price of admission. His other role is a traditional Kaye role: an American comedian. The gimmick is that he is an almost perfect double for the suave French romantic lead. He really plays three roles, and the subtlety with which he distinguishes them is superb. He is the American comic, he is the French millionaire looking a little like Yves Montand, and he is the American comic successfully passing himself off as the millionaire, fooling the wife and the valet as well as the general public. The role reminds me of Yves Montand in Let's Make Love with Marilyn Monroe: he plays the millionaire and he plays a poor guy trying to break into show business by passing for the millionaire. All in all, a triumph for Danny Kaye, well decorated with gorgeous females.