Year: 1929-30
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, George Barbier, Marion Ballou, Andrée Corday, Frank Lyon, Nat Pendleton, Elaine Koch
Director: Hobart Hensley
Nominations: Best Actor (Chevalier)
There's...not much to this one. It's a light-hearted romantic comedy starring two of the biggest names of the time, both of whom would remain active for the next several decades, but I can't think of this one as anywhere near the top of either's catalog.
It almost feels like an extended sitcom episode. Pierre (Maurice Chevalier) is a poor French tour guide living in Venice, while Barbara (Claudette Colbert) is a wealthy American tourist, and the two of them are madly in love and want to get married. We don't see this part. They start off in love and we're just asked to keep believing they are.
Her father (George Barbier) doesn't approve of the idea at all, thinking he's a poor little sponge, and too low-class for his daughter. He prefers Ronnie (Frank Lyon), who was engaged to Barbara until she got across the "big pond" (the Atlantic; hence the title), and discovered the love of a Frenchman.
Her father and Ronnie hatch a scheme to persuade her to leave Pierre; take him with them back to America where he'll work in the family-owned chewing gum factory (really?) where he'll be utterly out of his element and nowhere near as charming. Hilarity, and singing, ensues.
This is very much a product of its time. Its humor and charm have aged poorly, and the copy I watched was badly transferred, and thus hard to hear. One scene, involving Pierre meeting the young daughter of his landlady (maybe?), is actually more than a little creepy, as this was a far more innocent time. There's a couple of scenes where the actors are still holding their frozen tableau even after the cameras are rolling and then suddenly spring into action. And the ending, which was supposed to be...happy? I think? Well, it was just plain offensive. And really, Claudette Colbert is wasted here. Once they're back in America, she appears only infrequently and has little to do.
I do wonder what I would have thought of it if I'd seen it on the big screen back in the era that produced it, but if all that was true, I'd be a different person, so there's not much use wondering.
As it is, this movie is 77 minutes long, making it the shortest film I've watched for this blog so far, and it felt like one of the longest.
What little I know of Maurice Chevalier tells me that he's pretty much playing himself here, and in fact, more or less always does. He's nice and inoffensive enough, but when it comes to French charmers, I'll take Charles Boyer any day. I don't really fault the Academy for this; it was brand new and Chevalier was a huge name. This is one of two performances that earned him his nomination. We'l have to see if the other is any more worthy of awards.
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