Like infamous flop Anna Sten before her, it was three Hollywood strikes and out for Hungarian film star Franciska Gaal. This was the middle one (after Fredric March/before Bing Crosby), with Franchot Tone as co-star in a prettified remake of her Hungarian success CATHERINE THE LAST.* One of those silly romantic farces where a wealthy playboy disguises himself as a chauffeur to flirt with scullery gal Gaal. But only so he can sneak upstairs to see his fiancé without bumping into disapproving dad Walter Connolly. Then his heart is pulled downstairs. Director Norman Taurog doesn’t push too hard for laughs (most of the time) and it plays better than it has any right to, largely thanks to expert work from Tone (taming his drunken cad with charm) & Connolly (getting laughs on timing alone). Gaal is fine when the script doesn’t make her completely idiotic (right off the farm, she’s too gauche & naive to be believed), her character and hair styled on old Mary Pickford movies. (She’s nearly as tiny, too.) But looks and a pretty singing voice apparently weren’t enough.
DOUBLE-BILL: *CATHERINE, the German/Hungarian original produced by Joe Pasternak & directed by Henry Koster, sounds a lot more interesting, but is it available? Pasternak & Koster also came to Hollywood, hitting it big right away with Deanna Durbin’s starmaking THREE SMART GIRLS/’36. (See below)
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