André Luguet Movies

Metropolitan Opera diva Grace Moore made her film debut in MGM's A Lady's Morals. The film purports to be the biography of "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind, who was ballyhooed to stardom by 19th-century showman P.T. Barnum (Wallace Beery, who'd re-create the role in 1934's The Mighty Barnum). Most of the story, however, is given over to the fabricated romance between Lind (Moore) and young composer Paul Brandt (Reginald Denny), who gives her up when stricken with blindness. As if this wasn't trouble enough, Lind loses her voice at the height of her career; she regains her golden throat, but Paul is lost to her forever. Grace Moore sings seven songs during the film's amazingly brief (75-minute) running time, two of them operatic classics. The anemic box-office showing of A Lady's Morals and her follow-up vehicles briefly squelched Grace Moore's hopes for film stardom, but a few years later she enjoyed enormous success in a series of Columbia musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Amour a L'Americaine (American Love) focuses on a Yankee millionairess, played by Gallic comedienne Spinelly. Jilted by her French lover, Spinelly heads to Paris in hopes of winning him back. She spots her errant Romeo in a night club, where he is entertaining a pretty young woman. Assuming that the woman is his wife, Spinelly does everything she can to break up the marriage. By the time she learns that he was never married at all, it hardly matters: like the Mounties, Spinelly has finally gotten her man. The music in Amour a L'Americaine was provided by world-renowned bandleader Ray Ventura, who appears onscreen at several junctures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

French film favorite Danielle Darrieux had only recently cleared herself of a wartime "collaboration" charge when she starred in Au Petit Bonheur. The title translates as Happy Go Lucky, perfectly capturing the tenor of the film. Things aren't so happy at the outset, however, not with wealthy Andre Luguet on the verge of suicide. Luguet gets a second lease on life when he finds himself the nonplused host of Darrieux, who wants to make her errant husband Francois Perier jealous. Au Petit Bonheur is rather obviously derived from a stage play, written by Marc Gilbert Sauvajon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

C'East Arrive a Oden is partly a serious adventure yarn, and partly a spoof of its own genre. A French acting troupe finds itself stranded in a far-flung British colony in India. The troupe's leading lady, Dany Robin, is almost immediately wooed by a native prince. The upshot of this flirtation has international ramifications: the prince refuses to sign an important treaty unless Robin becomes his bride. This doesn't sit well with Robin's lover, an English lieutenant, nor with the villains, who hope to topple the prince from his throne. Director Michel Boisrond adapted the screenplay from a novel by Pierre Benoit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This "B"-grade spy drama features the ubiquitous Eddie Constantine as Lemmy (a favorite role), the special agent who has an unbounded capacity for Scotch and women, though not necessarily in that order. Lemmy has come to France to help the secret police track down a dangerous spy. His ability to fight himself out of any corner and charm himself out when fighting will not work comes in handy, as he and his French colleagues start to hunt down the elusive spy. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Three Murderesses stars Alain Delon as a French playboy who gets more than he bargained for when he begins romancing three women at once. All three ladies (Mylene Demongeot, Pascale Petit and Jacqueline Sassard) are sisters, of wildly divergent personalities. Eventually all three tire of Delon toying with their emotions and plot a wry revenge. Director Michel Boisrone can't completely avoid the healthy vulgarity that is his trademark, but Three Murderesses strives to please without unduly offending. Released in France in 1957 as Faibles Femmes, Three Murderesses was initially distributed in the US under the title Women are Weak. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jeune Filles en Detresse (Young Girls in Distress) was director G. W. Pabst's last French production before his (ill-timed) return to Nazi-occupied Austria in 1941. Somewhat reminiscent of Maedchen in Uniform, the story is set in a private girl's school, populated almost exclusively by children from broken homes. Among the few students who can claim family stability is Micheline Presle, but even her happiness is threatened when her lawyer father Andre Luguet inaugurates an affair with stage actress Jacqueline Debulac. With the help of Debulac's daughter Louisa Carletti, Presle is able to break up her father's romance and deliver him into the open arms of her mother Marcelle Chantal. On the whole, the performance by the younger cast members are more convincing than those rendered by the film's so-called adults. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An espionage romp inspired by a dying man brings a spy out of retirement in this crime film. ~ All Movie Guide