A racy and amusing screwball comedy from the busy pens of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. Set in contemporary pre-War France, penniless chorus girl Colbert steps off the Monaco to Paris train in the pouring rain wearing only her party gown where she encounters a friendly, handsome taxi driver, played by Don Ameche in a sub-Gable role, even down to his pencil 'tache and a budding if unlikely mutual attraction is immediately ignited. He takes her to an evening's musical entertainment attended by high society which she amusingly gatecrashes and after assuming a glamorous titled nom-de-plume, finds herself the centre of attraction of a rich group of toffs where she's asked by the friendly and generous millionaire Monsieur Georges Flammarion played by John Barrymore, to use her feminine wiles to honeytrap his straying younger wife's (Mary Astor) young and handsome gigolo beau (Francis Lederer).
Ameche meanwhile isn't giving up on his love-at-first-sight quarry and organises a city-wide raffle amongst his Parisian taxi-buddies to track her down and when he does, fully enters into the role-playing farcical proceedings before it all comes to an amusing if somewhat condescending courtroom sequence before the blustery presiding judge unsurprisingly played by Monty Woolley.
With all the screwball elements intact, kooky female lead, fantastic situation, romantic complications, a fast-moving and ever-changing narrative and of course, an all-loose-ends-happily-tied-up conclusion, it's an engaging and often sparkling comedy playing out the Cinderella motif of rags to riches to rags suggested by its title, to the hilt.
Colbert leads the cast delightfully but gets great support from the dashing Ameche, waspish Astor and especially the good-natured Barrymore in this fun-filled French frolic.
Ameche meanwhile isn't giving up on his love-at-first-sight quarry and organises a city-wide raffle amongst his Parisian taxi-buddies to track her down and when he does, fully enters into the role-playing farcical proceedings before it all comes to an amusing if somewhat condescending courtroom sequence before the blustery presiding judge unsurprisingly played by Monty Woolley.
With all the screwball elements intact, kooky female lead, fantastic situation, romantic complications, a fast-moving and ever-changing narrative and of course, an all-loose-ends-happily-tied-up conclusion, it's an engaging and often sparkling comedy playing out the Cinderella motif of rags to riches to rags suggested by its title, to the hilt.
Colbert leads the cast delightfully but gets great support from the dashing Ameche, waspish Astor and especially the good-natured Barrymore in this fun-filled French frolic.