50 Million Frenchmen (1931)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Lloyd Bacon

Writers:

Herbert Fields (play) &
E. Ray Goetz (play) ...

Release Date:

14 February 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Wager | Taxi | Tourist | Magician | Drunkenness

Cast

Ole Olsen	...	Simon (as Olsen)
Chic Johnson	...	Peter (as Johnson)
William Gaxton	...	Jack Forbes
Helen Broderick	...	Violet
John Halliday	...	Michael Cummings
Claudia Dell	...	Lu Lu Carroll
Lester Crawford	...	Billy Baxter
Evalyn Knapp	...	Miss Wheeler-Smith
Charles Judels	...	Pernasse - Hotel Manager
Carmelita Geraghty	...	Marcelle Dubrey
Vera Gordon	...	Jewish Tourist's Wife
Nat Carr	...	Jewish Tourist

Runtime:

USA:70 min (Turner library print) | 74 min (copyright length)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French | German

Color:

Color (2-strip Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | USA:TV-G (TV rating)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

This was originally a Cole Porter musical, but the songs were omitted from the film because box-office receipts for musical films at that time were down.

Movie Connections:

Version of Paree, Paree (1934)

Soundtrack:

You've Got That Thing

Sometimes funny, sometimes painful

Hardcore fans of Olsen and Johnson and/or Bela Lugosi will need no persuading, but others may find Fifty Million Frenchmen a pretty heavy slog. It's one of those early talkies where the actors hadn't quite figured out how to adjust their body language or their vocal intonations to suit the new medium, and it's at times awkwardly paced and badly shot. Nonetheless there are some inspired moments of Olson and Johnson lunacy, especially when the boys disguise themselves as the assistants of a stage magician and end up on stage performing a deadly sword trick. The romantic subplots are unnecessary and uninteresting and Johnson's maniacal laughter soon gets irksome.