Wonderful character development!

Good concept, poorly executed.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

No, this is not a GREAT film, but it's better than I expected it to be.Don Ameche is always pleasant to watch, including in this film as a movie director. Dorothy Lamour always seemed a bit worn to me, although a good sidekick in the Road films with Hope and Crosby. But in this film she shines. There is one excellent dance number later in the film, although it appeared to me a double was doing her dancing. The plot is decent. A film director is fired when his leading lady has a breakdown due tot he stress. So, at a carnival, he finds a promising replacement...if he can pass her off as being French. A sort of love/hate relationship develops, which I'm not sure quite works, although the overall picture does as Ameche tries his hand at a Pygmalion effort.This is a very good "B" musical, and frankly there were occasional "A" musicals that were inferior to this. So sit back and enjoy it...at least once.

SLIGHTLY FRENCH is a delightful little trifle starring Dorothy Lamour as a cynical carnival performer who is wooed by movie director Don Ameche to star in his new movie and feign being a great French star imported to America for the film. (Interestingly, this very plot was used that same year in IT'S A GREAT FEELING with Doris Day - and Day's Faux French femme's last name was Lamour!!!). Elegantly filmed by cultish director Douglas Sirk, SLIGHTLY FRENCH is not a classic but it's a very appealing little comedy/musical/drama with two excellent stars. Cannot believe one reviewer on IMDb wrote Lamour "never became a movie star" away from Hope and Crosby, she was only one of the biggest stars 1936-1949 in pictures and in 1941 was VARIETY magazine's top female box-office attraction. She starred in many excellent films sans Bob or Bing, THE HURRICANE, THE FLEET'S IN, JOHNNY APOLLO, SPAWN OF THE NORTH, etc. You'll note she gets billing over Ameche in this film. Alas, few of the big movie stars of the era have had their careers locked away in the vaults as Dorothy has - most of her films were at Paramount, and Universal (which now owns the 1930-1948 Paramount films) has done a very poor job getting most of them in circulation so most do only know her today from the Road movies. She was a great singer, a delightful screen star, and a fairly good actress too. Here's hoping this Columbia release will show up on Turner Classic Movies soon so more can see this lovely glamour girl in this underrated gem.

(Spoilers, yes -- but the plot hardly matters...) Nothing much to recommend this, I'm afraid, except perhaps for the opening dance number, which seems to be taking place in someone's idea of Paris, but which we only belatedly discover is a sound stage (as if we didn't know) with the entrance into the frame of a camera on its crane. Nice touch, that. Unfortunately, from her first scene top-billed Dorothy Lamour is quite insufferable (intentionally, perhaps, but that doesn't really help matters), and she is, unfortunately, the central character. Don Ameche does his level best with a role which he was to reprise (in essence) in the 1958 Broadway musical "Goldilocks," and he does rant well. Janis Carter gives a real amateur night in Dixie performance as Ameche's sister, but Willard Parker (very handsome, he) is more than respectable as Ameche's producer and Lamour's secondary love interest (who ends up with -- too bad for him -- Carter). At least the title is intriguing (as are almost all Sirk's titles, in one way or another). Quite, quite boring, however.

Don Ameche was on the decline in his career and Dorothy Lamour still trying to acheive stardom outside those "Road" movies when this movie was made. It tries to borrow from Ameche's earlier hits with Alice Faye but the formula does not work here because Lamour is no Faye. And she is expected to carry it. Supporting performances from Page and Kennard is good but not enough. If it were made today, it would make a good video rental.