I feel so luck to have caught this rare film at CINEFEST the annual early & rare film festival in Syracuse, NY - March 2003. More film buffs should support these festivals and share their discoveries on the IMDB so other film fans can track these old titles down. THE WORST WOMAN IN PARIS? (1933, Fox, D: Monta Bell) This was one of the best films in Syracuse! Glamorous but bored American art student Benita Hume is gossip fodder while she and wealthy trendsetter Adolph Menjou turn heads in Paris. Tired of being tired and scandalized in gossip columns, she leaves Menjou for a trip to the US. Barely surviving a Midwest train wreck, she becomes a local hero after injuring herself while saving a baby's life. While recovering at the home of the headmaster of a boy's school (John Strong) and his family, her veneer of over-sophistications melts away and she finds herself fancying the small town life. But Strong's devoted and neglected secretary is secretly in love with him. This deceptively simple tale makes a grand arch back to Paris where Menjou now ruined and is rescued when Hume returns to save him.
2 Reviews
Nice Monta Bell effort
overseer-38 January 2008
Warning: Spoilers
A friend sent me a disc of this rare film The Worst Woman In Paris (1933) copied off channel 13 in Newark, NJ.
This is an obscure Monta Bell romantic comedy about a notorious society lady in Paris, played by Benita Hume (Ronald Colman's 2nd wife) who is the paramour of dapper Adolphe Menjou. On a visit to America she falls in love with a college administrator, played by Harvey Stephens, and briefly considers she might be happy giving up her risqué life in Paris for the country charm of Kansas, but then she reads that Adolphe in Paris has fallen on hard times and lost all his money, so she returns to Paris, giving up the college administrator to the woman who really loves him sacrificially, played by piquant and dreamy Helen Chandler, one of my favorite actresses.
It's a bittersweet, charming film and I hope someday someone puts it on DVD in a nice crisp digital transfer for future generations to enjoy.
This is an obscure Monta Bell romantic comedy about a notorious society lady in Paris, played by Benita Hume (Ronald Colman's 2nd wife) who is the paramour of dapper Adolphe Menjou. On a visit to America she falls in love with a college administrator, played by Harvey Stephens, and briefly considers she might be happy giving up her risqué life in Paris for the country charm of Kansas, but then she reads that Adolphe in Paris has fallen on hard times and lost all his money, so she returns to Paris, giving up the college administrator to the woman who really loves him sacrificially, played by piquant and dreamy Helen Chandler, one of my favorite actresses.
It's a bittersweet, charming film and I hope someday someone puts it on DVD in a nice crisp digital transfer for future generations to enjoy.
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