"THE GILDED LILY" (1935) CLAUDETTE COLBERT

[rmichaelpyle]

Last night I watched another Claudette Colbert film I'd never seen before, "The Gilded Lily" (1935). This was her first film of many, many more with Fred MacMurray. Also starring was Ray Milland, but, believe me, this was Colbert's film all the way. It is a marvelously funny comedy which is loads of fun from beginning to finish. There is never a let-up of energy. I must admit I find it simply amazing that a lady who had as much talent as Colbert, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress, has so many films unreleased now on DVD! I recently watched and reviewed here "Secrets of a Secretary" (1931) which I found wonderful. I'd never even heard of it!

In "The Gilded Lily" Colbert has a sort of boyfriend, MacMurray, when Milland suddenly shows up from England. One thing leads to another leads to another leads to another until Colbert has her lily gilded by MacMurray, so to speak, and, in so doing, finds in the end she only needs MacMurray (of course) who also seriously needs her. It's a mad romp, though, through all kinds of thick and thin; and it's the kind of comedy done so very well in the 1930's. This certainly must be classed as a very close kin of screwball comedy, if not screwball in itself.

C. Aubrey Smith, Luis Alberni, Eddie Craven, Donald Meek, Grace Bradley, Edward Gargan (very funny in this!), and Warren Hymer round out most of the other main characters. Very, very highly recommended!

[Midge]

May 2, 2009 5:40:29 GMT -6 rmichaelpyle said:

One thing leads to another leads to another leads to another until Colbert has her lily gilded by MacMurray, so to speak

Great review. R. Michael! It does seem strange that Colbert's films are not more widely available. She was a superb leading lady, as was the similarly neglected Irene Dunne. My favorite Colbert films (other than IHON) are Midnight, The Egg and I, Since You Went Away, Remember the Day and The Palm Beach Story.

[Larry's 66 Diner]

Claudette Colbert was, imo, one of Hollywood's best leading actresses who deserves much more recognition than she seems to have gotten!

This sounds like a comedy I would like to see, Michael. Thank you for the review of this film!

[diane]

Actually I saw this yesterday. I thought it was great. It is only the third C.C. film I have seen
("It Happened One Night" and "I Cover the Waterfront" being the other two).
I thoroughly enjoyed this film - MacMurray played a pretty conniving character but Ray Milland
wasn't much better. It was all to do with the cult of "celebrity". Claudette played Lyn, who was
christened the "No Girl" by MacMurray's paper because of a false story he had run (without her
knowledge). There is a sequence in it in which she is hired as a song and dance act (even though
she can't sing and dance) and she just tells the audience how it is ("I'm a freak") and becomes
a sensation.
Looking up her films on IMDb there didn't seem to be any genre she couldn't do. My copy
of "The Gilded Lily" also has "Torch Singer" with and that looks good as well. I have Annette Hanshaw
singing "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Love" and I am crazy about that song!!!

[rmichaelpyle]

Diane, you must have the same print I do, probably the same source. My copy of "The Gilded Lily" also has "The Torch Singer" on it. That copy of "The Torch Singer" is not as good as the new release of the Pre-Code set that came out recently, but it's good enough. Yes, I thought that "The Gilded Lily" was very good. If your source is who I think it is, you can also find "The Secrets of a Secretary" there, too, and it's dynamite. Highly recommended. It's good you've seen "On The Waterfront", because it's a great little forgotten gem. It also was Ernest Torrence's last film. He died just after production of a massive heart attack. He and his brother David are some of my favorite character actors. Ernest, who plays such crummy characters in many of his films, believe it or not at the turn of the twentieth century had been one of Scotland's leading grand opera singers! He was a big lug evidently, an intelligent, well read, opera loving lug who had an ugly mug and big gangly arms and a lumbering walk which lent well to his character parts being what they were.