GOOD GIRLS GO TO PARIS

US, 1939, 75 minutes, Black and white.
Melvyn Douglas, Joan Blondell, Walter Connolly, Alan Curtis,
Joan Perry, Isabel Jeans, Alexander D' Arcy, Clarence Kolb.
Directed by Alexander Hall.

Good Girls Go To Paris is an old-fashioned screwball comedy of the '30s. A B-budget production, directed by Alexander Hall who made many of these films, the comedy highlights, Joan Blundell as a waitress who wants to marry an intellectual wealthy man and goes to Paris. The man she meets is Professor Melvyn Douglas (posing as English). She sets her cap at him, they fall in love, he resists because he has an upper class fiancée. There are all kinds of mix-ups, Joan coming to the rescue of the family, saving the brother when he is drunk, becoming the bridesmaid at a wedding. After all is sorted out and the Professor (somewhat Pygmalion professor-like) reconciles with Joan there is a happy ending.

The story is fluff and nonsense - but illustrates very well the type of escapist popular comedy of the '30s. The heroine is ordinary, makes mistakes, makes-a fool of herself but has a heart of gold and - a bit like a belated Cinderella - achieves all she hopes for. The English, of course, are the intellectuals and desirable men. Fun is poked at American institutions, colleges, snobbish families. There are farcical elements - all the ingredients of the screwball comedy.