Such a frustrating disappointment

Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely Brilliant!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

By 1934, when this movie was made, First National had been absorbed by Warner Brothers and produced mostly small-budget movies, such as this one. It tells the story of a con artist (Powell) who goes to Paris with his artist (Davis) with the intent of copying the designs of the great houses of fashion so that they can sell them to department stores back in the States. Instead, when that doesn't work, they discover the inspiration for Paris' leading couturier, and open their own house of fashion, which has a brief success until things fall apart.If the dates weren't wrong, you'd imagine this was a low-budget knock-off of Roberta, which deals with some of the same themes. It probably owed something to the 1933 musical behind that movie, such as the American woman who lives in Paris disguised as Eastern European royalty.It has none of Roberta's elegance, though, either in its fashions or, more importantly, in the dancing and singing of its leads. The one big dance number doesn't involve any of the principals, just a lot of skimpily-clad women in ostrich feathers. During all the time the musical review is under rehearsal, you would swear you're in New York, and not Paris. Indeed, there is no effort at all to convince the audience that the action is really taking place in the French capital.Powell and Davis are fine, Frank McCue and Hugh Herbert do their standard routines, which are better used in other movies. There's nothing memorable here, and nothing Parisian.

This amusing concoction is worth the money because of two dyed blonds and one extravagant, divine musical number. The bleached Bette Davis as a fashion designer smitten with the antics of professional crook William Powell, who appears too well dressed and polite to be totally believable in the job. Bette actually manages to look great as an ornamental sidekick to Powell, but underneath the determined designer girl we can detect the power house that will culminate in her unsurpassed rendition of Queen Elizabeth with Errol Fllynn years later.The second bleached blonde is Verree Teasdale who plays a fake Russian grand-duchess from Newark, NJ, who not only manages a phony accent and some extraordinary clothes and jewels for every scene, but has also managed to convince "Baroque" the king of Parisian fashion that she is the real thing and worth marrying, this feat alone deserves an Oscar, at the very least.Drag-Queens beware: This is an undiscovered treasure performance,that can give enough material for a national tour show, including her musical name itself which is a cocktail of sound effects: How many Es can you squeeze in one word? Her off-key, fluffy delivery of the lyric to the song "Spin a Little Web of Dreams" has all the components for a drag anthem, in any language, and huge cross over potential as impromptu cabaret number. The 'Broadway Follies" sequence itself, directed by Busby Berkeley, is the other real reason to watch this film. For one thing, this scene has illustrated the cover of that most necessary book on film : "Holywood Babylon" and although there is absolutely nothing Babylonian about it, except perhaps the excess of ostrich feathers, there is a horde of platinum blonds festooned with endless variations on the 'white ostrich feathers fan motif' moving and dancing in hypnotic coordination. Some are actually part of the harps that others play, they curve at the harp's end like the wooden sculptures of sail vessels for a fetish-furniture look that is perfection. The scene includes an overhead shot that demonstrates the complex flower patterns that can be achieved with all this female trouble.There is also a fashion show. This one obviously influenced Cukor's in "The Women" when all those nice ladies go to 'Fraks', but is actually much better. For one thing we see a painting before the model comes out wearing an adaptation of the design. The first one is Cardinal Richelieu, followed by a model wearing an evening gown inspired on his cape, but the others are more generic of different periods, the adaptations are all very 30's and all considerably better than that weird stuff out of Halloween that comes out in "The Women" as supposedly 'haute couture'. In the movie itself, Bette had discovered that Baroque was buying old books on fashion to inspire his designs, so we know it was her idea to develop that into a fashion- show-extravaganza, and she watches it approvingly from what looks like an opera box, opera glasses in hand. That shot catches her in a more regal pose than the grand-duchess could muster through the film in its entirety, and the impact of that image puts all those ostrich-fan bearers in perspective too: this woman is no one's ornament and she sure could be a queen anytime she wanted to.This movie is a most for Bette Davis fans, musical comedy lovers and all those interested in the historical development of camp. Highly recommended!

Warner Bros. had a major actress within their midst with the addition of Bette Davis. However, they didn't know what to do with her during her early years there so they tried to primp her "feminine" image by putting her in a movie about fashion thieves in a type of plot that seemed made to order during the Thirties.Seeing how dolled up she looks here (with that platinum, shoulder length wig, caked on make-up and and those screaming dresses), it now becomes unthinkable to even imagine her having been picked up by MGM (where Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, and Adrian dresses ruled supreme) because she would have been completely miscast in every ultra-melodramatic movie given to her there. Not that Davis wouldn't do her own share of melodramas, but for the attention they gave to the creation of iconic screen goddesses dressed in impeccable gowns and inaccessible, airbrushed looks as they left the real, heavy acting to a side, it would have been a matter of time before Davis would have been devoured by that studio or even relegated to second-fiddle.It's why she fared better in the grittier dramas that Warner Bros. pushed out, but this particular movie wasn't where her talents became the main focus -- she gets very little to do even in key scenes. She is teamed well with William Powell, however, and I wonder why wouldn't they be matched up again in another movie but that's a secondary issue. FASHIONS is, however, quite an entertaining movie with a lightweight plot and performances in the good sport vein, with Veree Teasdale a secondary standout as a Hoboken native who poses as a Russian countess and rival to William Powell. Also of note is the fashion show done in the style of the times, and the musical number with Busby Berkeley's blonde beauties who look exactly alike and are dressed in lush ostrich feathers.The good thing about FASHIONS is that it comes right before her loan-out to RKO and her career-turning OF HUMAN BONDAGE. When seeing how little quality time she has on camera in this movie, one can only think this is the same woman who at twenty-five would explode out of her mold and rip up the screen as Mildred Rogers.

Suave con artist (Powell) and sultry designer (Davis) take over the Paris fashion world by copying designer gowns and passing them off as originals. Interesting comedy-musical is highlighted by the `Spin a Little Web' number choreographed by Busby Berkley, but in general the concept dates badly.