The Gilded Lily (1935)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Wesley Ruggles

Writers:

Melville Baker (story)
Claude Binyon (writer)

Release Date:

25 January 1935 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Plot:

A stenographer becomes a famed entertainer, courted by an English nobleman and an informal American reporter.

Plot Keywords:

Reporter | Popcorn | Singer | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Claudette Colbert	...	Marilyn David
Fred MacMurray	...	Peter Dawes
Ray Milland	...	Charles Gray (Lord Granton)
C. Aubrey Smith	...	Lloyd Granton, Duke of Loamshire
Luis Alberni	...	Nate Porcopolis
Eddie Craven	...	Eddie, Photographer
Donald Meek	...	Hankerson
Charles Irwin	...	Oscar, Orchestra Leader
Forrester Harvey	...	Hugo / Innkeeper
Grace Bradley	...	Daisy
Claude King	...	Boat Captain
Charles C. Wilson	...	Managing Editor
Edward Gargan	...	Subway Guard
Pat Somerset	...	Man in London Club
Georgie Billings	...	Guard's Son (as George Billings)

Runtime:

80 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #475)

Filming Locations:

Iverson Ranch, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: In a scene taking place in New York, a streetcar bearing the word "Chicago" can be seen in the back ground.

Quotes:

Marilyn David: I'm just a freak!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974)

Soundtrack:

Something About Romance

What It Takes To Be A Celebrity

Claudette Colbert was given two of Paramount's up and coming leading men in The Gilded Lily which holds up very well today because it talks about the cult of celebrity. Ray Milland and Fred MacMurray co-starred with her and in MacMurray's fifth film he became a star.

Fred's a reporter and Claudette's a secretary and they have a regular Thursday date on a bench near the main public library in Bryant Park in New York. They talk about the state of the human condition while munching on popcorn. But one fine day Claudette runs into Ray Milland who is traveling incognito in the USA, he's a titled English Earl whose got a playboy reputation and a fiancé back across the pond.

MacMurray as it were happens to spot Milland and his father C. Aubrey Smith as they're boarding the boat back for the United Kingdom. His reporter instinct takes over and he breaks the story of Milland and Colbert and overnight he creates a celebrity, 'the No Girl.'

What to do, but try and exploit this all around and Claudette working class secretary one day becomes a celebrity like Zsa Zsa Gabor, Pia Zadora, or Jessica Hahn. The cult of celebrity was just beginning back in the day and The Gilded Lily is one of the first films to deal with that phenomenon.

Though MacMurray got his big break in this film after four other films which he didn't make much of an impact, the film really does belong to Claudette Colbert. She's got some great comic moments here, getting drunk and passing out under a nightclub table while MacMurray and owner Luis Alberni are discussing putting her in his club.

Of course Claudette doesn't sing or dance or do card tricks, so what will she do once she gets there. Another great moment is Claudette taking singing lessons from an exasperated Leonid Kinskey. This might have been the inspiration for the scene where Fortunio Bonanova tries to resign from giving singing lessons to Dorothy Comingore in Citizen Kane. Of course this one is played strictly for laughs as poor Colbert tries to croak out a song.

Claudette Colbert doesn't sing or dance or do card tricks, but give her her due as one of the best screen comediennes films had back in the Thirties. She's at her very best in The Gilded Lily and what the film says about celebrities and what it takes to be one is probably more true today than back in 1935. Don't miss this one if broadcast