Man of the World

About the only thing that this pre-Code drama is significant for is that William Powell and Carole Lombard met on the set of Man Of The World and were married shortly thereafter. They did another film while both were at Paramount, Ladies Man and then were divorced with Powell leaving Paramount for Warner Brothers and a short stint there. Neither of these films is anything close to that third film they did, My Man Godfrey.

Powell along with Wynne Gibson and George Chandler has a nice little racket going in Paris. A former reporter he prints a newspaper if you can call it that of gossip distributed among visiting Americans. But for a consideration he'll make sure the item never gets printed. We have a political blogger in my area who actually does the same thing, so this racket I know well.

But problems ensue when he actually falls for visiting American tourist Carole Lombard who is a niece of Guy Kibbee whom Powell has already put the bite on.

Bill Powell was at a crossroads in his career, during the silent era he mostly played villains, that clipped mustache of his was guarantor of those kind of parts. Here he is a rat, but a rat with a conscience. How that plays out you have to watch the film for.

Powell and Lombard are good, but Wynne Gibson as a woman who knows the score in life gets all the acting kudos in Man Of The World. She should have done a film called Women Of The World.

Man Of The World is not a classic like My Man Godfrey, but Powell and Lombard do have good chemistry. Of course they had better chemistry once they were divorced.