A Midwesterner waitress, scheming to gold-dig her way to Paris, gets mixed up with a wealthy New York family.
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Title: Good Girls Go to Paris (1939)
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| Cast overview: | |||
| Melvyn Douglas | ... | Ronald Brooke | |
| Joan Blondell | ... | Jenny Swanson | |
| Walter Connolly | ... | Olaf Brand | |
| Alan Curtis | ... | Tom Brand | |
| Joan Perry | ... | Sylvia Brand | |
| Isabel Jeans | ... | Caroline Brand | |
| Stanley Brown | ... | Ted Dayton Jr. | |
| Alexander D'Arcy | ... | Paul Kingston | |
 |
Henry Hunter | ... | Dennis Jeffers |
| Clarence Kolb | ... | Ted Dayton Sr. | |
| Howard Hickman | ... | Jeffers - Brand's Butler (as Howard C. Hickman) | |
Jenny Swanson, a waitress on a college campus, confides to English Professor Ronald Brooke that she is willing to gold-dig and blackmail her way to a Paris vacation. Her journey lands her in the New York home of Brooke's future in-laws: the wealthy and fractious Brand family. Jenny charms grandpa Olaf, and seems on her way to landing a rich suitor but her conscience and her heart may lead her in another direction... Written by L. Hamre
When I saw "Good Girls Go to Paris" on YouTube I was excited. After all, it stars Melvyn Douglas and Joan Blondell and it is a romantic comedy from Warner Brothers...nearly all the ingredients needed for a good film. Unfortunately, it lacked one thing...a good script. So, while the actors try their best and the film looks good, the plot is rather stupid at times!
The film begins with a funny scene involving students about to attend a class with a visiting professor from England. Little do they know that the man they're conspiring with is Professor Brooke (Douglas) from the UK! However, he sounds about as British as Mantan Moreland and this was a poor casting or writing decision. Soon he meets a gold-digger at a local restaurant. Jenny (Blondell) is quite open that she either wants to marry a rich student (and Brand University is full of them) or get the fathers of one of these students to give her a handsome settlement to leave their son alone! But when he talks to her about Aesop and morality, he convinces her to listen to her conscience and act accordingly.
After leaving her job after one of the rich fathers threatens to have her arrested, she accidentally meets Tom Brand on a train and openly tells him she's a gold-digger and about her plans to snag a rich guy or get a settlement. He's taken by her new-found honesty but soon gets drunk on the train. In fact, he's so drunk Jenny leaves the train to escort him home...and hilarity (?) is sure to follow.
While there's much more to the plot, often it just comes off as very, very contrived and unfunny. The whole Aesop angle is dumb and the film suffers from this and many other silly aspects of the film. Not a total waste...but surely a score of 6 is disappointing considering what old film lovers would expect from these folks.