Holy cow, two posts a week apart. The crazy part is that neither one was scheduled. The whole 'old' rule might be modified since we now have a toddler in the house and its either something that's flashy and has lots of music or after bedtime (which means we don't want to read subtitles). Its too bad though, there are some really good foreign films out there.
Anyway back to the movie...
Plot
This is a movie where Lucille Ball and Bob Hope play young people. Its a stretch. I mean, come on, Lucy was in her late 30s when this film was released in 1950; she was born in 1911. This is also one of the movies she made before she got her own show. Don't ask me how they thought she deserved her own show from this.
Regardless, the story is about the Floud family a neuvo riche family that made it big in the frontier in Butte, Montana in its pre-statehood days. They go to England to find a man for their daughter {though at this point she would have totally been a spinster}. One guy fancies her and decides to invite them to his country home to meet his family. Small problem, he has neither a country home nor family. No worries, his friend has a country home and he knows an acting troop he can hire to play his family for the weekend.
Enter Humphrey (Hope) the hired actor playing the butler. Humphrey is nowhere near conventional, but Ma Floud believes he can fix her husband so he can act like a true gentleman. She sends atelegram announcing that she was bringing home a "gentleman's gentleman." The entire town assumes a Lord or Duke or some such is coming back to marry Agatha (Ball). This is where the real problems begin.
Suddenly Humphrey has to act the Lord to the townpeople, but still be a butler at the manor all while actually being an actor.
My thoughts
Well, I don't feel enriched or even necessarialy entertained by watching the movie. The best part is that Bob Hope looks incredibly like Kelsey Grammer best known for his role as Dr. Fraiser Crane. Aside from that the humor was almost exclusively physical comedy. If you LOVE those funniest home video shows, you will probably enjoy this movie. If you can't stand them you wonder when there will be humor. I mean Bob Hope was known for his jokes. Lucille Ball was known for more physical comedy, but this physical comedy was just not funny.
Also, why didn't Humphrey have an English accent? EVER? He would throw a few horridly pronounced words in something that sort of resembled a British accent, but it was not consistant and it was not good.
Bottom line, it was an ok movie but its not worth your time. The whole "romantic comedy" concept is brief and it made me wonder how in the world Lucy ever got her own TV show. Trust me, this film does no one justice.
If you think of watching this show because you enjoyed I Love Lucy
The nice thing about this break in blogging, is that I at least started posts for several movies making it easy to complete them with perhaps a bit of help from imdb or wikipedia to get names of actors/directors or award info.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 happy happy musical. At least initially. Its very Sesame Street in its bright colors, young love, sing-along way.
Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy gets shipped overseas in the name of his country.
Basically, Genevive i.e. girl in the previous scenario is the daughter of a broke umbrella shop owner Madame Emery. Mom's only hope at not being broke or almost broke is to marry Genevive off to a wealthy man. Genevive meanwhile falls for Guy a young man working as a mechanic in someone else's shop. Guy's parents are dead and he lives with his aunt who is cripple or sick or something.
Young love ensues while Madame Emery sets up dinner and meetings with a wealthy jeweler (who actually keeps the umbrella shop from going under by buying Madame Emery's jewels).
Then Guy is drafted. The two love birds are of course sad, and want to spend their last moments together. They go to Guy's room after his Aunt is in bed.
In a rather foolish moment Genevive and Guy sleep together his last night in France. Genevive soon discovers that tryst led to a little guy on the way. She wrote to Guy with the idea that when he returns they will be wed, but after many months and no replies to her letters she unhappily agrees to marry the jeweler that her mother picked out at the beginning of the story.
Of course, Guy didn't die or forget her during the war. he returns home with an injury and finds the Umbrella Shop gone, Genevive gone, and his heart broken. Guy gets depressed. His girl went off and got married, he hates his job, he drinks. He drinks a LOT. He also quits his job and starts picking up women.
He hits rock bottom when he sleeps with a prostitute and learns her name is Genevive. Oh tragedy! He goes back home and finds out his aunt died, and the only person left is Madeline (the aunt's nurse/helper).
Fast forward, and Guy owns a gas station and mechanic shop and him and Madeline have a son. Genevive is driving through town and stops for gas.
I will let the end be a surprise.
Ok, usually French bothers me (ironic that I don't care for many foreign films just because of their language, yet I watch lots of them) but French singing? Génial! Its probably the fact that this is literally an opera. Every line is sung. So its got the gaiety of a 60's musical, and still dramatic and obviously not American.
I give this film 4 stars because its got star crossed lovers, and reality mixed in. It would have 5 stars, but all the singing voices are dubbed (yes in a movie where all the lines are sung).
