Truly Dreadful Film

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

It's a reunion for Ginger, With director Sam Wood ("Kitty Doyle", with Adolph Menjou ("Stage Door "). Then why is it such a fiasco? Ahead of its time? Perhaps, but that doesn't make it good. Out of the ordinary for Ginger Rogers' usual works? Definitely as well, because her character is like nails down a chalkboard, and not really likable. Ginger's other side of the track characters at least had some class and knew when to shut up. Another major issue is that she's about 15 years too old for this part, a young waif out of reform school becomes a professional pickpocket, trained by Basil Rathbone, and later taken in by the suave Menjou whose really out for no good as well. Along comes Jean Pierre Aumont to sweep her off her feet, and it's on the path to reform for the out of her element Ginger who wasn't having much success in films in the mid 1940's in spite of still being considered an A lister.This seems to be striving for the European style of films, not the Italian or French new wave, but an operatic elegance that was present in the films of Cocteau but seems forced and overstuffed here, ultimately seeming pretentious. Indeed, it is a remake of a French film. Ginger has one scene where she gets to screech like a teenager, making me wonder if dogs were barking in the San Fernando valley as she filmed this scene in Hollywood. She's forced to speak like a much younger character and dresses closer to how "I'll Be Seeing You" co-star Shirley Temple did. Menjou seems like he's still acting in the romantic comedies of the early 1930's, as if he was in another film altogether. This is pretty much an almost fiasco, but it looked so good in its lavishness that I just couldn't bear to give this a bomb. I give Ginger credit for wanting to try something different, but with all her talent and grace, she just wasn't right for this part.

Actress, Ginger Rogers is best known for her performances in RKO's musical films in which she was partnered with Fred Astaire such in the case with 1935's film 'Top Hat' & 1936's film 'Swing Time'. However, after two commercial failures with Astaire in 1938's 'Carefree' & 1939's 'The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle". Rogers began to branch out into dramatic films and comedies. This movie is one of those films. Directed by Sam Woods, the film tells the story of a young naïve struggling escapee, Arlette (Ginger Rogers) willing to do anything; in an attempt to avoid, going back to reform school, even dealing with schemers, liars, and cheats by pickpocketing and playing the system in Aristocratic Paris. Without spoiling the movie, too much, the first part of the movie was indeed the best part, as I found the idea of a pickpocket academy to be, very unique, even if it's a bit unbelievable. It remind me, so much of author Charles Dicken's 'Oliver Twist' with everybody trying to get Arlette to do something very wicked. However, after a few scenes of pickpocketing, the film really turn into mindless boring fluff, with her, abandoning it, for another gold digger scheme in which, she tries to shame marry an aristocrat in order to get a working permit. Because of that, the film plot got really generic and forgettable. Plus, all the life was suck, out of the room, as the humor and great acting was gone, as interesting supporting characters like Professor Aristide (Basil Rathbone), Yves (Mikhail Rasumny) & 'the Ambassador' (Adolphe Menjou) were replaced by below-standards hammy acting, from Jean-Pierre Aumont as Pierre de Roche & Melville Cooper, as Pierre's friend, Roland. It was no longer fun to watch. It would likely have worked better if personalities like Aristide and 'the Ambassador' stick around longer. Both were amazing characters. Who knew that, an actor that is best known for playing detectives, Basil Rathbone would be so great, as a funny masterful criminal! He was wonderful! For Mikhail Rasumny, I hate the fact that his character was barely used. He was wonderful as the trouble man, looking for work. For Adolphe Menjou, he was the only actor that seem like he was from France. Everybody else, seem like they were miscast. Don't get me wrong, Ginger Rogers isn't bad in the role that she was given, but her American southern accent was pretty jarring to hear, in a film that supposedly taking place in Europe. It would have work, better, if the movie explain that she was indeed an illegal immigrant AKA American in France, living in the streets. Then it would make sense, why her character acts the way, she does. Another thing that was jarring about her performance was the fact that the 35 year old, Rogers was playing an 18 year old reform school delinquent. It was just too big a stretch for this viewer's imagination. Despite, not looking the part, she does had a mix of teenage shyness and spunkiness. However, I wish the movie used more of her dancing skills. The ballroom scenes could had been better, if that was the case. Still, the movie had some really good scenes that shows the pressures of self-preservation. I love the movie theater scene, it was brilliant. Seeing the surrounding speaks, without the character moving their mouth was a wonderful move by the director, even if the movie, they are seeing, is it's a bit too convenient to what is happening in the main plot. Still, in the end, I have to say, the original French film in which this movie was based on, "Battement de Coeur" AKA "Beat of the Heart", was better. After all, everything about this American version seem like a shot for shot remake of 'Beat of the Heart'. Even the dummies are nearly the same. So, they had to be, doing something right. In my opinion, even the acting was better. French actress Danielle Darrieux & actor, Claude Dauphin were far more stunning, savour, and incredibly charismatic than anybody in 'Heartbeat'. Also, the plot was more focus on the pickpocketing than this film. At least, the good old-fashioned happy ending in 'Beat of the Heart' seem more earn than it was in the American remake. So, overall: I have to say "Heartbeat' is a few beats off from me, really liking it. It's too bad, because this movie could had stolen my heart, but it didn't. It was just disappointing.

When will they learn? That's purely rhetorical if anybody asks you. Born in 1917 - and still with us - Danielle Darrieux began her career in movies at the start of the Sound era and before the end of the thirties was the biggest female star on the French screen playing essentially the same role over and over in a series of lighter=than air romantic comedies that often required her to sing a song or two. In the mid-point of the decade she teamed up with writer-director Henri Decoin for The Green Domino, an entry with slightly more substance, they married and made a string (six) of successful souffles before divorcing in 1941 after Premiere Rendez- vous, but remained friends and made a further three films together. One of the biggest successes was Battement de coeur in which Darrieeux played a fugitive from Reform School who enrolled in a school for pickpockets under the leadership of Saturnin Fabre and, after a series of adventures encountered her Prince Charming in the shape of Claude Dauphin. It was delightful and enchanting in equal measure the perfect antidote to the outbreak of war. For reasons best known to themselves RKO decided to remake it in 1946 with a decidedly mid-thirtyish Ginger Rogers in the Darrieux role, Basil Rathbone replacing Saturnin Fabre and authentic, albeit wooden, Frenchman Jean-Pierre Aumont in the Claude Dauphin role. In a reverse alchemy a soufflé turned into a suet pudding and no one came out of it well. One to be avoided.

GINGER ROGERS again is photographed in soft focus so that she can fool the camera lens into having us believe her as an 18 year-old girl who is taught to be a pick-pocket at a crime school run by no less than BASIL RATHBONE. Encouraged to become a petty thief, she is sent off to ply her trade and soon finds herself caught up in a romantic liaison with a wealthy Frenchman JEAN-PIEREE AMOUNT.In outline, the story sounds like it would have a lot of potential as a charming romantic comedy. And sometimes it almost works. Rathbone does a smoothly professional job as her crime school mentor and ADOLPHE MENJOU adds sophistication to the supporting cast. But Ginger remains unconvincing throughout, sadly miscast in a role that could only have been carried off by an actress who was young enough to assume such a role.Whatever tricks of photography were needed to photograph Rogers in a soft glow are simply wasted. She's never for a moment convincing as an ingénue and the film should have been scrapped once it was revealed that the casting mistake would ruin the story. Alas, another misfire for Rogers during a period which alternated between good and bad roles in some films that ranged from mediocre to excellent.Summing up: Hardly worth your time.