My Favorite Movies: The Rage of Paris

A while ago, a coworker asked me what my favorite movie was. I'm sure he was thinking I would respond with a title he had heard before, such as Casablanca, Star Wars or The Princess Bride. He seemed surprised when I named a little-known black and white film from 1938, The Rage of Paris.
It stars Danielle Darrieux, a popular French actress at the time, who made only a few films in the United States, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. It's not a masterpiece, or even what you would call a "great" movie, but I like everything about it: the script, the characters, the acting, the perfect comic timing, the witty word-play, the chemistry between the two leads, and the 1930's fashion. With this movie, it's all about the journey - and what an enjoyable romp of a journey it is. 

Synopsis:

Nicole (Danielle Darrieux) has no job and is several weeks behind with her rent at the boarding house where she's been living. Her solution is to try and snare a rich husband. Enlisting the help of her friend Gloria (Helen Broderick) and Mike, the head waiter at a ritzy New York City hotel (Mischa Auer), the trio devise a plot for Nicole to catch the eye of Bill Duncan (Louis Hayward), a handsome millionaire staying at the hotel. Nicole's plan may be thwarted by Bill's friend, Jim Trevor (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), who met Nicole when she was still down on her luck, and sees through her plot.

Quotes:

Nicole: Good afternoon.
Receptionist: What do you want please?
Nicole: I'd like to have a job.
Receptionist: Are you registered here?
Nicole: Well, no I'm not. I've never been --
Receptionist: We're not registering any new girls. (answers the phone) Towers Model Agency. Good afternoon. (pause) You have the wrong number. I'm sorry.
Nicole: I'm sorry too.

Mr. Wright: You're French, eh?
Nicole: Yes, I'm French. But it would show on the pictures.

Mr. Wright: I have a job for you to pose with drapes.
Model: For how much?
Mr. Wright: Two seventy-five an hour. He wants you three hours a day for about ten weeks.
Model: That's no job. That's a career.

Nicole: You are Mr. James Trevor, no?
Jim: I am Mr. James Trevor, yes.

Nicole: I'm sorry I'm not ready. I know you are very impatient.
Jim: No, I'm just curious. Would you mind telling me what this is all about, or is that asking too much?
Nicole: Pardon?
Jim: What is this all for?
Nicole: Two dollars and seventy-five cents an hour.
Jim: Oh, for two seventy-five an hour.
Nicole: Is it too much?
Jim: Oh no, no, no. As a matter of fact it's quite reasonable. I was just thinking that it's worth that to find out what happens next.

Nicole: You are the certain Mr. Trevor, no?
Jim: I am Mr. James Trevor, but not very certain.

Nicole: Where are the draps [drapes]?
Jim: What?
Nicole: You have the draps?
Jim: I don't know. I had the measles. What are the draps like?

Nicole: You're a photographer, no?
Jim: That's where you've got me. I'm a photographer. No.

Jim: Well, gentlemen. There must be a moral in there somewhere. So will you all go back to your offices and try to find out what that is?

Landlady: On your way!
Nicole: But you can't do this. You must help me.
Landlady: If you want help, get it from Washington.
Gloria: Washington's dead, haven't you heard?

Landlady: You keep out of this, Miss Patterson.
Gloria: I pay seven dollars a week in this fire trap, and if there's any fun going on, I want to be in on it.

Old male boarder: Stop this clacker. I'm trying to think!
Gloria: It's all right, the evil queen is trying slip Snow White the apple again.

Landlady: She's four days behind in her rent.
Gloria: And you're two weeks behind with your hot water.
Landlady: I have to live too, you know.
Gloria: Why?
Landlady: Don't you talk to me like that!
Gloria: I'll do better than that. I won't even talk to you at all. And I'll pay her rent!

Nicole: Why are you always so good me?
Gloria: Oh, I suppose you have to be good to something, and my dog died a week before you moved in here.

Nicole: Did you marry a rich husband?
Gloria: I married a hoofer. All he had was a time step and a shuffle off to buffalo. Late in life in got ambitious.
Nicole: And got rich?
Gloria: And got 20 years.

Gloria: This kid wants a job.
Mike: Job?
Gloria: Yes, she's one of those rare people who really want to work for a living.

Gloria: Look at those girls in there. That's where you belong. Not in a kitchen. The way to a man's heart is through his eyes, baby. That's the modern version. He believes what he sees and takes bicarbonate of soda for his indigestion instead of a wife that can cook. Those women spend three billion dollars a year in beauty parlors and not for cook books.
Nicole: You're very hard to understand sometimes.
Gloria: Seventy percent of all the money in America is in the hands of women. You understand that, don't you?
Nicole: Yes, but --
Gloria: And if the boys don't look out, the girls will be the other thirty percent.

Hotel Manager: We want your stay with us to be a memorable and enjoyable one. Because we feel that there isn't a hotel in America that is so well equipped as ours to make you as comfortable as you were in the home you just left.
Gloria: What a sweet thought.

Nicole (regarding fur coat): Oh, oh, it's a dream.
Mike: It costs 30.00 a day to rent the coat. It's no dream, it's a nightmare.

Gloria: She's such a child.
Mike: And while she's growing up it's costing me 60.00 a day for this suite. And that's a little over four cents a minute.
Gloria: If you lose one penny on this deal I'll give you my right eye.
Mike: And I'll take it.

Gloria: If I just had my boots and saddle.

Bill: When did you get the mustache?
Jim: That's something I picked up when I had the flu.

Jim: Who are you with?
Bill: A girl.
Jim: A local one?
Bill: No, she's from Paris.
Jim: Kentucky?
Bill: France.

Bill: Do you still like brunettes?
Jim: Sure, you know me.
Bill: Well fine, she's a blonde.

Girl in restaurant: I want ham and eggs.

Mike: I have a beautiful table for three.
Gloria (whispers to Mike): I wish you were right.
Bill: Make it for four, Mike.
Mike: Right this way, please. (to Gloria) Why four?
Gloria: We're having company for supper.
Mike: Who?
Gloria: Trouble.
Mike: On my money, having trouble for supper.

Jim: How long have you been in New York, mademoiselle?
Nicole: Oh, well I...
Bill: Just a week. She arrived the same day I did.
Jim: A week? I would have said you'd been here much longer.
Gloria: Oh, uh, she fools everyone.
Jim: I'm sure she does.

Nicole: Go ahead, I can took it.

Jim: Sorry I've been rough on you, but war is war.
Nicole: You said it, Mr. Trevor.

Bill: Nice friend I have.
Gloria: I've heard that man's best friend is always the dog.

Bill: I can't understand it. He's changed so completely, inside a year too.
Gloria: I knew a man once whose hair turned white overnight.
Bill: Well, I wouldn't believe it about Jim, unless I'd seen it.
Gloria: You know, this man wouldn't believe it about his hair until he became bald the following night. But that convinced him.

Mike: The young lady in your party forgot her wrap.
Jim: It wasn't my party, and she's not a lady.
Mike: Oh, I'm sorry sir, but I'm sure you know your friends better than I do.

Nicole: That's the first time anyone has ever said anything like that to me before.
Gloria: Said what?
Nicole: He said I'm cheap.
Gloria: Well, you certainly paid him back for that.
Mike: In spades! He's got some nerve! Cheap. I've figured out just now how much it costs. Eighty seven dollars and fifty cents in rental. Cheap. What does he want you to wear, radium?
Nicole: He meant I was dishonest.
Gloria: Darling, all women are dishonest. If they weren't, the world would be divided into two classes of people: old maids and bachelors. Look (rubs off Nicole's lipstick), that's dishonest. Plucking your eyebrows is dishonest. The rouge on your cheeks is dishonest. And a fat women in a girdle... ha! that's highway robbery.

Mike: I started out to get a restaurant, and now I'll be lucky if I end up with a ham sandwich.

Rigley (Jim's valet): It's a dangerous business interfering between a man and a maid.
Jim: Yes, Rigley. I know when I'm in trouble without you telling me.
Rigley: There was a similar situation in my own family, sir. As a matter of fact, that's the way my second cousin lost his right eye.
Jim: Mr. Duncan's my best friend. That's the only reason I'm doing this.
Rigley: It was my second cousin's brother, sir, that knocked out my second cousin's eye.

Jim (on the phone with Nicole): Hello. Is the the rage of Paris, or the pride of Hoboken, or whatever you're calling yourself today?

Jim: You're going to have dinner with me tonight.
Nicole: What! Oh, oh no, I don't like you. I'm sorry.
Jim: Well, I'm not sorry at all, but you're still going to have dinner with me at 7:30 sharp.

Jim: Did you hear that, Rigley?
Rigley: Do you want me to, sir?
Jim: I do.
Rigley: I did.

Jim: I'm sorry, my dear, but the age of chivalry is dead. And when I come back I'll take you to the funeral.

Uncle Eric: I think your niece resembles you quite a lot. Or should I say you resemble your niece.
Gloria: Oh, it doesn't matter. We all look alike in our family.
Uncle Eric: Haha! I'm glad we don't in ours.

Jim: You're working on borrowed time anyway. I should have fired you last Tuesday.
Rigley: Why don't you fire me now, sir.
Jim: Well, if you do a good job tonight, perhaps I will.
Rigley: Thank you very much, sir.

Nicole: Just wait, I make a lot of trouble for you.
Jim: Go ahead, I can took it.

Jim: Watch you step. It's rough here. I don't want you to break your neck.
Nicole: I'm sorry I can't wish you the same.

Nicole: What's a hog.
Jim: A hog is a very big pig.
Nicole: Now I could say something. (pause) But I don't.

Pops: It's been so long since you've been up here that I was beginning to commence to forget what you look like.

Nicole: Now I go on a sit-down strike.
Jim: Then I'd better get you a coat.
Nicole: No. I don't want any coat. I'm going to get pneumonia and die. Then what will you do with the body?

Nicole: Don't be mad, Jimmy.

Nicole: Mr. Pops, where is the telephone?
Pops: Right over there. But it ain't connected.
Nicole: Not connected? But can't you make it connected?
Pops: Oh sure. I'll notify the company first thing tomorrow. They'll send a man out to fix it... in about a week or 10 days. That's what they call service or something. But I've got another name for it.

Jim: I always thought the French like to eat.
Nicole: Yes, but they're very particular.
Jim: About their food?
Nicole: About who they eat with.

Jim: I come from a long line of hunters.
Nicole: No, I think you come from a long line of sour pusses.

Nicole: All the fresh air is outside, and inside, there's nothing.

Nicole: I think I'm going to look out of the window, if you don't mind.
Jim: No, no, it all comes with the dinner.

Nicole: Can't you go any faster?
Truck driver: Sure. But I ain't allowed to leave the truck.

Mike: So, it's all over but the shouting. Well, that's life. You take a chance, and draw a blank.
Gloria: It's finally got him.

Gloria: You know, something tells me I'm going in the restaurant business myself.

Rigley: Before you do this, sir. Let me tell you about an incident in which my second cousin, One Eye Rigley, was involved.

Mike: I'm gonna name a dish after her.
Gloria: Yeah, what?
Mike: On the regular dollar dinner in our new restaurant the frogs legs will always be called "a la Cortillion."
Gloria. Don't forget to name the mashed potatoes after me.

Jim: You have the draps, no? You are the certain mademoiselle de Cortillion, no?


Watch it on Youtube.

Jane Austen's Lady Susan Comes to the Big Screen

I had no idea that Jane Austen's short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, had been adapted to film. It opens in New York, Los Angeles and Paris this weekend, and opens nation-wide on May 27th. But don't go looking for a film called Lady Susan at the movie theaters. The title has been changed for the film to Love & Friendship (which is the title of one of Jane's early juvelinia works).

I am very encouraged after watching the trailer that this should be really good. It's also nice to see Kate Beckinsale in another Jane Austen adaptation 20 years after she was in a wonderful version of Emma.

Movie/Stage Review: Love Never Dies

Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, was not a hit in London, and received mostly negative reviews. When it closed, it was rewritten, reworked, and then restaged in Melbourne, Australia to mostly positive reviews. The stage production was filmed and plays for two nights only at movie theaters. The first night was Tuesday, February 28th. The second is March 7th.

When you walk into the movie theater, you hear the sound of an audience in a theatre. Not a movie theater, but a theatre for live performances. There is a different sound of the audience of a theatre for live performances from a movie theater.

The commercials before the main feature were also different from those before a movie. There were commercials for Sister Act, the musical, and Ghost, the musical, both playing on Broadway. And there was a commercial for a touring show, Memphis.

Then they showed what's coming up next with Fathom Events. The Comedy of Errors, She Stoops to Conquer, and Casablanca. I'm excited that you can see these types of shows/movies on the big screen.

Before the main feature began there was a segment on the filming of the production that featured Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was interesting to hear how they decided to film the production, and what went into it. However, it went a bit long and soon I was just ready to see the show.

I am not the biggest fan of The Phantom of the Opera. My closest friends could tell you how I feel about it. But I have to say that I enjoyed Love Never Dies better than The Phantom of the Opera. Shocker! Like Phantom, it is heavy on spectacle and light on plot. As I once heard Sylvia Fine Kaye (Danny Kaye's wife) say, "the plot was so thin, its slip is showing."

So, here's the plot: Madam Giry helped the Phantom escape from the Paris Opera house ten years before, and they, along with Madam Giry's daughter, Meg, went to America. They found a place for themselves among the artists and freaks at Coney Island. In the ten years they have been there, the Phantom has pined for Christine.

Christine has married Raoul and had a son, and she believes that the Phantom is dead. Christine's marriage to Raoul is not a happy one as Raoul is a drinker and a gambler (sounds a bit like Gaylord Ravenal from Show Boat). The Phantom lures Christine to New York on the pretense that Oscar Hammerstein I (that's the grandfather of the Oscar we are familiar with) wants her to sing in his Opera house in New York City. Once she's there, the Phantom tricks Christine into promising to sing his song in his Coney Island show, Phantasma. Raoul knows that if she sings, he has lost her. I won't say what she does. Oh, and Christine's son is 10 years old and loves to write music. I'll let you guess that surprise on your own.

Andrew Lloyd Webber said in the segment before the show that he thinks this is his best score. There are many songs by Lloyd Webber from other musicals (even The Phantom of the Opera) that I like better than those in this show, but I think it has a decent score. The lyrics are not the best, but no lyrics for ALW shows have ever lived up to those by Tim Rice. Fans of The Phantom of the Opera will be happy to hear some familiar melodies from that musical interspersed through Love Never Dies. The score is very operatic, but one song, "The Beauty Underneath," has more of a rock beat, a little like "The Phantom of the Opera" from the original, and it seems very out of place.

The Phantom of the Opera was all about spectacle: the staircase, the giant candles coming up from the stage, and the chandelier. Love Never Dies has some spectacular sets too, but it's not quite as grand as Phantom, and I liked the set for many scenes. The musical is set at Coney Island, and one set looks like a roller coaster, but theatrical. That set also has a giant warped mask on stage right. It was effective. There was another beautiful set that was a circle of giant peacock feathers. It was my favorite.


The costumes were extremely well done. I love the styles of that period (early 1900s). I especially loved Christine's beautiful gowns, and when she sees the Phantom again, of course she's wearing a white gown. And, so as not to disappoint true fans, she does wear the white dressing gown made famous in The Phantom of the Opera later when she's in her dressing room.

I had a problem with the casting of the Phantom himself. He just seemed too young. His voice was beautiful, and he certainly could sing the score, but he wasn't believable to me as the Phantom. It also annoys me that they make him out to be this great romantic hero, just as they did in The Phantom of the Opera. If you've read the book, you know that he is not a good man. He kills people. He kidnaps people. The book is a detective novel, not a romance novel.

There's one thing I have to say about Christine, I don't know if she ever closes her mouth. Her mouth isn't wide open, but her lips are always apart like she's always under some spell (this is something I noticed in the film of The Phantom of the Opera too). I don't know if it's a specific direction given to every girl who plays Christine, but it bugs me.

My favorite of the cast was Meg Giry. She did an excellent job. I really liked her "Bathing Beauty" number. The costuming in that number was very fun. The little boy who played Gustave, Christine's son also did a very good job.

There are some very melodramatic parts in the musical that made me want to laugh, because the melodrama was so big, but I reminded myself that this is stage acting, not film. In stage acting you have to play to the balcony so they understand the emotion. In film it's close up, and a little goes a long way. In this production sometimes the acting was over the top.

I decided to go into the show with no bias, and judge it solely on its own merits, and I discovered many merits. It's not a perfect musical, but that honor for me only goes to Man of La Mancha. I would love it if they filmed a good stage version of that. The movie version is so bad.

Love Never Dies will be shown again at movie theaters on March 7th in case you want to see it. If you like musicals I recommend that you see it, especially if you like The Phantom of the Opera.

The Woman in Black

The Woman in Black is a ghost story written by Susan Hill. A new film adaptation starring Daniel Radcliffe opened today. I'm not sure if I'm going to see it. We'll see. I don't see many scary movies because it doesn't take much to freak me out. However, I've seen the play and I am curious about it. This is a ghost story, not a slasher, or flesh-eating zombie movie.

The plot is simple. Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor, has been given the job to go to the home of an old woman who has recently died to go through her papers and settle her affairs. The house is at the end of a causeway, and at high tide there is no way to leave or get to the house.

At the old woman's funeral he sees a mysterious woman in black. Then he senses the woman's presence and sees her again while he is alone in the house and cut off from everyone. He also hears terrifying noises out on the causeway. I won't give more of the story away, but suffice it to say, the rest is terrifying.

I've actually seen the play twice. The first time I saw it was at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. My friend saw the play in London and she told me it really scared her, so I was trepidatious before I saw it. I enjoyed the play at the Shakespeare Festival, but I didn't get as frightened as I could have because there were a bunch of high school students in the audience, and they were very vocal during the play. It kept taking me out of the story, making me annoyed every time they said, "there she is!" and "when is she going to appear?" As much as I didn't want to be freaked out, I did want to enjoy the scary elements, and I couldn't do it with the constant commentary.

Then, a little more than a year ago I saw the play in London. The production was in an small, old theatre that had the perfect atmosphere for a ghost story (the theatre is also said to be haunted, but I didn't learn that until after I saw the play). My friend and I couldn't get seats together, so I sat by myself. Even though I had seen the play before and knew what was going to happen, the play was directed differently, so there was still an element of the unknown. The second time was much scarier. I enjoyed it very much.

If I decide to see the movie I'll post about. If I don't see the movie, you probably won't hear anymore about it from me unless it's a huge hit or unless I see the play again.

If you see it, I'd love to hear what you think of it.