Robert Osbourne said it in the introduction, so it must be true: this is a great screwball comedy, written by Billy Wilder, that often gets overlooked. Well, as it turns out, I agree with him. I'd taped it last week and got to watch it this afternoon. I wasn't familiar with the movie at all before, but I'm sure glad I am now.
I'll crib a plot summary from IMDB: Showgirl Eve [Claudette Colbert], stranded in Paris without a sou, befriends taxi driver Tibor Czerny [Don Ameche], then gives him the slip to crash a party. There she meets Helene Flammarion [Mary Astor] and her gigolo Picot, who's attracted to Eve. Helene's scheming husband Georges [John Barrymore] enlists Eve's aid in taking Picot away from his wife. It works well... at first. Meanwhile, lovestruck Tibor searches for Eve. But then he learns she's calling herself Baroness Czerny!
You could say this is a typical 30's "mistaken identity" comedy, and you'd be mostly right. I have to say, though, some of the plot twists were rather clever. Just when you think Claudette Colbert is going to be found out, she or John Barrymore come up with some spur of the moment story to save their skins. Quite creative stories, too. Barrymore is a delight, especially in the scene where he's portraying Eve's imaginary daughter Francie on the phone: "Dada? Is that you?" If you see it on the TCM schedule again, check it out (or you can, as Robert helpfully pointed out, buy it on DVD).
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