Strong and Moving!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Ernst Lubitsch is the guiding hand behind "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife," a 1938 comedy starring Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper. The screenplay was written with a light touch by Brackett and Wilder.The story concerns a wealthy man, Michael Brandon (Cooper), who meets the very attractive Nicole De Loiselle (Colbert) in a Parisian men's department store. Brandon wants to buy the top of the pajamas, as that's what he sleeps in, but the clerk insists that he buy the entire set. Nicole enters and buys the pants. Nicole's father (Edward Everett Horton) is a penniless marquis, trying to sell a project to Brandon, who isn't interested. The marquis then attempts to get him to buy a Louis IV bathtub. When he realizes that Nicole is the marquis' daughter, the marquis sees immediately that there is interest and tries to get them together. After all, he's loaded, and the hotel bill is due.Finally, the couple does become engaged and of course the marquis brings in his entire family at his expense for the wedding. While everyone is gathering for a photograph, some white stuff falls out of Michael's suit. "What is that?" she asks. "It's rice," he says. "Don't you use it at weddings? It's supposed to bring good luck." "Did your bride and groom have good luck?" she asks. "Well," he says, "we had a pleasant six months."She then finds out he's been married seven times. After renegotiating some sort of prenup he has set up, she goes through with the wedding, but they live separate lives.For some reason, people put this film in the same category as I Met Him in Paris because they're on the same DVD and they both take place in Paris. I Met Him in Paris is not a Lubitsch film and has some problems. This film has a fine script, zips along at a great pace, and has some wonderful scenes. I Met Him in Paris didn't really pick up until the second part.Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert are delightful. It's hard to believe that someone like Gary Cooper actually existed - tall, drop dead gorgeous, and a cowboy to boot. Talk about your perfect man. And what a smile. Colbert is flawless in acting and in beauty - I saw her up close in 1974 and she looked the same as she did in this film. For as much success that she had, I don't think she ever received the credit for her dramatic work that she deserved, though she did for her comedy. In her last appearance, in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, she played an actual person, Elsie Woodward (name changed in the movie), and people who knew Elsie said Colbert was totally the character.I don't think this is Lubitsch's best, but it's still delightful. How can you miss with those stars, that director, and those writers.David Niven has a supporting role as an employee of Brandon's who is also a friend of Nicole's. He's very funny.

I liked Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert in this. Cooper played Michael Brandon, an American multi-millionaire and Colbert was Nicole - a French woman of aristocratic background. They meet in a store in Paris while Michael is trying to buy pyjama tops without the bottoms (? - must be a thirties thing.) When the store refuses to sell them that way, Nicole steps in to buy the bottoms, and the two develop a romance. Unfortunately, just before their marriage, Nicole discovers that she's to be Michael's eighth wife - and she doesn't take kindly to the news, especially when he offers her a contract paying her for the inevitable divorce. Here's where the movie stopped working for me.From this point on, it became - to me at least - mean-spirited rather than funny. Yes, there continued to be amusing scenes, but they were all seemingly spiteful. In a way, this struck me as a milder version of something like "The War Of The Roses." Yes, there's more going on than meets the eye - as we discover when the movie finally comes to an end and Nicole's motivation becomes clear, but I still didn't find this an especially pleasant movie to watch in spite of the good performances from the two leads. (3/10)

Very interesting failure. Everything is top-notch - writers, director, cast - and nothing works. What should have been a witty and sparkling adult comedy comes off like a mouthful of cardboard. Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert are like oil and water. The dialog feels arch and stage-bound, and the situations totally false and contrived, possibly because the adults seem to be behaving like 10-year-olds. Its a late 30's film, but feels oddly very early 30's and somehow dated, like a dusted-off version of "Trouble in Paradise". Compares unfavorably with Colbert's next film, the scintillating "Midnight", one of her more amazing roles.

I have to agree with other reviews I've seen of this movie - despite some funny scenes and good lines, as a whole it just doesn't get off the ground, and Gary Cooper is wrong in the role of the much-married millionaire. Having said that, I love the scene where Claudette Colbert's character, talking about her financial difficulties, says: "Have you ever had a waiter look at you with untipped eyes? And when I ask the elevator boy for the fourth floor, he says 'Yes, Madame' and takes a detour through the basement." A small detail: in one scene Colbert is looking at a book called "Live Alone and Like It" which was an actual best-seller at the time.