Fifty Million Frenchmen | |
---|---|
Directed by | Lloyd Bacon |
Written by | Joseph Jackson Eddie Welch Al Boasberg |
Based on | 1929 Musical play: Cole Porter Herbert Fields |
Starring | John Halliday Claudia Dell William Gaxton Helen Broderick Ole Olsen Chic Johnson |
Cinematography | Devereaux Jennings (Technicolor) |
Edited by | Robert O. Crandall |
Music by | Cole Porter |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
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Running time | 74 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $484,000 [1] |
Box office | $430,000 [1] |
Fifty Million Frenchmen is a 1931 American pre-Code Technicolor musical comedy film directed by Lloyd Bacon. The film was produced and released by Warner Brothers and was based on Cole Porter's 1929 Broadway musical Fifty Million Frenchmen .
The film was originally intended to be released late in 1930 but was shelved because of perceived public apathy toward musicals. Warner Bros. released the film in February 1931 after removing all of the music. The film was released outside the United States as a full musical comedy in 1931.
Wealthy Jack Forbes bets his friend Michael Cummins that he can woo and win Lu Lu Carroll without using any of his money or connections. Cummins hires Simon and Peter, a pair of erstwhile detectives, to ensure that Forbes does not win his bet. Instead, Simon and Peter befriend Cummins and decide to help him.
50 Million Frenchmen was originally a Cole Porter musical, but the songs were omitted from all prints of the film in the United States because recent box-office receipts for musical films were below expectations and the studios perceived that the public had grown tired of musicals.
According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $401,000 domestically and $29,000 internationally. [1]
In a contemporary review for The New York Times , critic Mordaunt Hall wrote: "Only a few mildly amusing episodes are depicted ... This film has been produced without the songs of Cole Porter and the prismatic work is at times poorly lighted. The players, including Olsen and Johnson, William Gaxton, Helen Broderick, John Halliday, Claudia Dell, go about their work with marked enthusiasm, but they are unfortunate in the vehicle." [2]
Only a black-and-white copy of the cut print released in 1931 in the United States is known to have survived. It is unknown whether any copies exist of the complete film that was released intact in other countries.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Founded in 1923 by four brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American film industry before diversifying into animation, television, and video games, and is one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in Hollywood films.
Mary Margaret "Peggy" Cass was an American actress, comedian, game show panelist, and announcer.
Fifty Million Frenchmen is a musical comedy with a book by Herbert Fields and music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It opened on Broadway in 1929 and was adapted for a film two years later. The title is a reference to the hit 1927 song "Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong" by Willie Raskin, Billy Rose, and Fred Fisher, which compared free attitudes in 1920s Paris with censorship and prohibition in the United States. The musical's plot is consistent with the standard boy-meets-girl plots of musical comedies of the first half of the twentieth century.
"You Do Something to Me" is a song written by Cole Porter. It is notable in that it was the first number in Porter's first fully integrated-book musical Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929). In the original production, the song was performed by Genevieve Tobin and William Gaxton, performing the roles of Looloo Carroll and Peter Forbes, respectively.
Rob Mounsey is an American musician, composer, and arranger.
Helen Broderick was an American actress known for her comic roles, especially as a wisecracking sidekick.
William Gaxton was an American star of vaudeville, film, and theatre. Gaxton was president of The Lambs Club from 1936 to 1939, 1952 to 1953, and 1957 to 1961. He and Victor Moore became a popular theatre team in the 1930s and 1940s; they also appeared in a film together.
Harold Ogden "Chic" Johnson was the barrel-chested half of the American comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, known for his strangely infectious, high-pitched "Woo-Woo" laugh.
Claudia Dell was an American showgirl and actress of the stage and movies.
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