Por un viaje a París

This is not a well crafted or written piece of cinema. I have been arbitrarily watching comedies from this era of late largely to stick my head in the sand from the horrors of the world at the moment. This film could easily be remade with some updates to the increasing gender equality in the world. The setup was unusually clever for one of these early romantic comedies, the characters were fun, some even had a bit of depth. Joan Blondell is utterly charming and her Jenny Swanson is the original Manic Pixie Dreamgirl, it is delightful fluff entertainment. The whole web of mistaken identity was probably clever for the time and a nod to A Midsummer Nights Dream.

Special appreciation to Walter Connolly's performance, his cartoonish exasperation and chemistry with Blondell were some of the best moments in the film. The actors are genuinely enjoying themselves.

Is the writing silly, sure, the dialog a bit basic, absolutely, but holy crap I enjoyed this ever so much more than anything I've seen in awhile.

When I saw "Good Girls Go to Paris" on YouTube I was excited. After all, it stars Melvyn Douglas and Joan Blondell and it is a romantic comedy from Warner Brothers...nearly all the ingredients needed for a good film. Unfortunately, it lacked one thing...a good script. So, while the actors try their best and the film looks good, the plot is rather stupid at times!

The film begins with a funny scene involving students about to attend a class with a visiting professor from England. Little do they know that the man they're conspiring with is Professor Brooke (Douglas) from the UK! However, he sounds about as British as Mantan Moreland and this was a poor casting or writing decision. Soon he meets a gold-digger at a local restaurant. Jenny (Blondell) is quite open that she either wants to marry a rich student (and Brand University is full of them) or get the fathers of one of these students to give her a handsome settlement to leave their son alone! But when he talks to her about Aesop and morality, he convinces her to listen to her conscience and act accordingly.

After leaving her job after one of the rich fathers threatens to have her arrested, she accidentally meets Tom Brand on a train and openly tells him she's a gold-digger and about her plans to snag a rich guy or get a settlement. He's taken by her new-found honesty but soon gets drunk on the train. In fact, he's so drunk Jenny leaves the train to escort him home...and hilarity (?) is sure to follow.

While there's much more to the plot, often it just comes off as very, very contrived and unfunny. The whole Aesop angle is dumb and the film suffers from this and many other silly aspects of the film. Not a total waste...but surely a score of 6 is disappointing considering what old film lovers would expect from these folks.

...and dull rom coms like this go into the vault until or unless they are exhumed by TCM for god knows what esoteric reason. Just a hymn to the un funny with, as a previous reviewer noted, a too old Joan Blondell (at least too old to be playing a college town lunchroom waitress) and a too somber Melvyn Douglas with, as another previous reviewer noted, zero chem with Joanie. Throw in the usual trying too hard performance of Walter Connolly, dialogue that is at best half ass "Philadelphia Story", and a director who is clearly uncomfortable or unfamiliar with physical comedy of any sort and you can see why this thing is best forgotten. Solid C.

PS...Googled Joan Perry, who played Silvia. Saw that she survived marriage to both Harry Cohn and Laurence Harvey. Now there's a movie I'd like to watch.

This does start off pretty badly, well very badly but then, all of a sudden it turns into something really good and very funny. So don't get fooled by the false start, stick with it. If you liked TOPPER and MY MAN GODFREY, you'll probably enjoy this as well.

The beginning is not promising - in fact, after ten minutes of cringingly awful stereotypes, I nearly switched this off. I'm glad I kept with it because it switched from being a tiresome corny comedy set in the world's most sexist university (you ladies are here to serve the young gentlemen not to distract them by showing them your legs etc. Etc.) to a fast, well written, well acted witty comedy of errors.

I wasn't too sure at first about Joan Blondell's character: on one hand she's blatantly setting out to blackmail the young gentlemen (who all look like they're in their 30s) yet also innocent and naive. Her character makes no sense - how can such a calculating schemer be so genuinely sweet? Well she can't, you just have to park that gaping plot hole in the darkest recesses of your mental garage which you can because Joan Blondell plays this impossible character so well.

As she stands directly in front of their faces, looking straight into their eyes, smiling and fluttering her eyelashes, it's perfectly obvious that she's got that confidence, that ability to turn a man to jelly. She does it without trying, without even knowing what she's doing. It's quite an interesting change of character for her and she does it remarkably well. I'm not sure anyone else could make such an unbelievable character so believable and of course likeable.

Once it gets going, it's got a feel of MY MAN GODFREY about it. Unlike most of those so-called screwball comedies, this one is actually funny. Although this is very much a Joan Blondell movie, the real star is Walter Connolly. A lot of reviews have commented that he horribly overacts in this but so what - so did Basil Fawlty! Don't know why but when he exclaims: 'What kind of house is this that doesn't have a herring?' I laughed out loud. Out of context that just sounds weird doesn't it - but just watch it, it's great, stupid but great.

Two frivolous observations: 1) Joan Blondell's dress is (sadly) not as short as it is in the poster. 2) Walter Connolly looks absolutely identical to the 'matured' Mr Scott from 1980s Star Trek movies.

Joan Blondell spent her career in average and mediocre movies. Warner Bros churned out the TV shows of that day and unfortunately for Joan, she was the studio's workhorse. In later years she often said she couldn't remember much about most of them because they were all the same, and the only thing that changed were the clothes. Her assessment is sadly true; most of them are pretty desultory.

But she got a chance to shine with 'Good Girls Go To Paris' and the results are spectacular!

Jenny Swanson is one of the great characters of '30s films, a girl who moves through life purely on the surface, showing only the most superficial understanding of each situation in which she finds herself. But that 'public face' is only her defense. It conceals her real person, deeply understanding, able to perceive the problems of the people around her, pierce their defenses with ease, and dominate the proceedings to bring about the most satisfactory solution. No man can resist her brilliant personality, as one after the other they fall madly in love with her - even the cold millionaire, played brilliantly by Walter Connelly, is vanquished by Jenny's honesty and charm. None of these poor men have a chance!

All time great romantic comedy.