Product Review

The melodies of You’ve Got That Thing and You Do Something to Me lace the soundtrack; but Hollywood did something to the screen version of the Cole Porter musical Fifty Million Frenchmen: It dropped the songs! At the time; moviegoers frowned on song-and-dance vehicles; so the studio-tinkered result was a frantic contraption of nonstop jokes; sassy pre-Code double entendres and the antics of vaudeville/radio stars Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson. The slender plot concerns a $50;000 bet that lovestruck American-in-Paris Jack Forbes (William Gaxton repeating his Broadway role) can woo and wed the alluring LuLu (Claudia Dell) without his wealth. But the sidebars are more fun: Helen Broderick as a randy tourist who wants to be “insulted;” the mischief of Olsen and Johnson (leading the Paris police on a madcap Keystone Kops-like finale chase) and a briefly seen Bela Lugosi as a magician mystic denied his chance to perform. Not to worry for Bela: Fifty Million Frenchmen shared its 1931 opening day with another opus called Dracula; and the rest is history. Vive le Hollywood!

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