Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Ernst Lubitsch

Writers:

Charles Brackett (screenplay) and
Billy Wilder (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

18 March 1938 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

He married in haste and repeated in pleasure!

Plot:

US multi-millionaire Michael Barndon marries his eight wife, Nicole, the daughter of a broken French Marquis...

Plot Keywords:

Nobility | Beautiful Woman | Sanitarium | Wheelchair | Hotel

Cast

Claudette Colbert	...	Nicole De Loiselle
Gary Cooper	...	Michael Brandon
Edward Everett Horton	...	The Marquis De Loiselle
David Niven	...	Albert De Regnier
Elizabeth Patterson	...	Aunt Hedwige
Herman Bing	...	Monsieur Pepinard
Warren Hymer	...	Kid Mulligan
Franklin Pangborn	...	Assistant Hotel Manager
Armand Cortes	...	Assistant Hotel Manager
Rolfe Sedan	...	Floorwalker
Lawrence Grant	...	Professor Urganzeff
Lionel Pape	...	Monsieur Potin
Tyler Brooke	...	Clerk

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Hungary:14 | USA:Approved (PCA #3985) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | USA:TV-PG (TV rating) | Finland:K-16

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. Because of legal complications, this particular title was not included in the original television package and was not televised until many years later.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Nicole shuts the door to her part of the apartment to keep Michael out, you can hear her locking it. But throughout the film there is no keyhole or lock visible on either side of her door.

Quotes:

Nicole de Loiselle: I wish someone would tell you what I really think of you.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Holiday (2006)

Soundtrack:

Wedding March

Shaving A Bluebeard

Years before pre-nuptial agreements became a regular thing, Ernest Lubitsch made a screen comedy on which they are the basis. Bluebeard's Eighth Wife involves Gary Cooper as a multi-millionaire living on the French Riviera who's been married seven times and now marries Claudette Colbert for number eight. But Cooper's a good sport about it, he always settles with his ex-wives for a $50,000.00 a year as per an agreement they sign before marrying him. Sounds like what we now call a pre-nuptial agreement.

Of course Claudette wants a lot more than that and she feels Cooper takes an entirely too business like approach to marriage. She'd like the real deal and is willing to go some considerable lengths to get it.

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife has some really funny moments, the original meeting of Cooper and Colbert in a men's store where Cooper is insisting he wants only pajama tops and Colbert looking for only bottoms. And of course my favorite is Colbert trailing and blackmailing the detective Cooper sends to spy on her. Herman Bing has the best supporting role in the film as that selfsame, flustered detective.

I've often wondered how back in the day Hollywood could get away with casting so many people who are non-French in a film like this. Of course Cooper is an American and Colbert of the cast is the only one actually of French background. Though David Niven is charming as always, having him be a Frenchman is ludicrous, he is sooooooo British.

Nevertheless Bluebeard's Eighth Wife is an enjoyable film and a great example of what was called 'the Lubitsch touch' back in the day.