Fantastic!

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The film isn't the greatest but not the worst film ever made. Okay, it's about Paris in the 1930s where American expatriates like William Powell's character go to make money, live cheaply, and escape the horrors of the Great Depression in the United States. William Powell is a great actor and perhaps one of the finest of his time. He does what he can with this weak script where he plays a publisher in Paris. He falls in love with the niece of a wealthy American played by the wonderful Carole Lombard. Wynne Gibson has a supporting role as the other woman in William Trevor (Powell's character) life who knows his secrets. I liked Wynne Gibson in another film and she was a great actress here as well. The actors do the best with the weak script but it was Paramount and other studios who produced and made films a lot more than they do today. Studio film actors and actresses had contracts to make a certain amount per year. Yes, not all of them were brilliant. Some of them like this film is one of mediocre types of it's time.

Man Of The World is an 80-year old curio found in an economically priced Universal album with five other Carol Lombard pictures likewise valued primarily as antiques. The gorgeous Miss Lombard bore not a little resemblance to Greta Garbo in the looks department, though even more beautiful. Unfortunately there was little resemblance in the acting department. She was best at comedy, but Man Of The World is a melodrama. Never mind, William Powell was on hand to take care of that department with solid support from the delightfully eccentric Guy Kibbee and perennial strumpet Wynne Gibson.This picture is very much the creaking early talkie. You know it is from the moment you start the DVD by the 1.20:1 screen aspect ratio. The sound strip on the edge of the film cut the 35 mm film frame's original 1.33:1 (same as an old standard TV screen) down to a claustrophobic, square-looking screen. By 1933 all the studios would adopt the "Accademy Standard" 1.37:1 screen by the simple expedient of a camera aperture mask. Early street scenes in Man Of The World are obviously stock footage from silent movies. But there was little other stock footage available then! When the movies started talking, there were three kinds of actors available -- those who had acted only in silents, stage actors, and actors who had experience in both media. But they and their directors soon learned that the talking picture was a whole new game. The melodramatic gestures needed to convey emotion in silent movies looked ridiculous with actual spoken dialog. Yet the stage style of acting would seem wooden in talking pictures. With microphones actors did not need to shout to be heard, and the motion picture camera could record subtle facial expressions and body movements which would have been lost on the third row of a live theater audience. Both Powell and Lombard had stage as well as silent movie experience, though much more of the latter in her case. Powell, who would eventually develop a talking picture style of top caliber, was still working on it in Man Of The World. He seems a little stiff at times, and so does Wynne Gibson, but both are nevertheless very effective. Contrary to what some other reviewers have felt, I found Gibson's performance and asset, even though there were times when she was projecting to the back row seats. Carole Lombard's sound acting style with her sexy voice and fluid movement seems more natural, but then her part in the picture is not a particularly demanding one. Guy Kibbee, surprisingly, is the player who had the most secure handle on the new sound movie style. Perhaps it was his early experience as an entertainer in the intimate confines of a Mississippi riverboat.The oft-used plot has slick con man Powell trying to work a blackmail scheme on naive American lass Lombard and her rich but dimwitted uncle Kibbee. With jealous ex-moll and confederate Gibson egging on the reluctant Powell. Predictably Powell falls in love with the sweet and beautiful Carole. However, all is very well done, things do not necessarily go according to formula, and the ending is something of a surprise.Though I was about to give up on the Carole Lombard movies after watching two from the set, The Princess Comes Through, and We're Not Dressing (see my review), I was pleasantly surprised by Man Of The World. But then it was really a William Powell movie. Carole didn't have to do much except look good, and she did that very well indeed.Man Of The World is rough around the edges but rewarding if you stick with it. At an hour and fourteen minutes, a good filler movie.--------- Post Script (Jan 2014): Since writing this creaky old review, viewings of several other Carol Lombard Lombard pictures, including Love Before Breakfast (1936) (see my review) and the wonderful Twentieth Century (1934) have considerably raised my regard for the beautiful lady's acting ability.

About the only thing that this pre-Code drama is significant for is that William Powell and Carole Lombard met on the set of Man Of The World and were married shortly thereafter. They did another film while both were at Paramount, Ladies Man and then were divorced with Powell leaving Paramount for Warner Brothers and a short stint there. Neither of these films is anything close to that third film they did, My Man Godfrey.Powell along with Wynne Gibson and George Chandler has a nice little racket going in Paris. A former reporter he prints a newspaper if you can call it that of gossip distributed among visiting Americans. But for a consideration he'll make sure the item never gets printed. We have a political blogger in my area who actually does the same thing, so this racket I know well.But problems ensue when he actually falls for visiting American tourist Carole Lombard who is a niece of Guy Kibbee whom Powell has already put the bite on. Bill Powell was at a crossroads in his career, during the silent era he mostly played villains, that clipped mustache of his was guarantor of those kind of parts. Here he is a rat, but a rat with a conscience. How that plays out you have to watch the film for.Powell and Lombard are good, but Wynne Gibson as a woman who knows the score in life gets all the acting kudos in Man Of The World. She should have done a film called Women Of The World.Man Of The World is not a classic like My Man Godfrey, but Powell and Lombard do have good chemistry. Of course they had better chemistry once they were divorced.

This film stars William Powell and Carole Lombard--who were briefly married shortly after this film was made. Powell plays a very sophisticated and clever thief who blackmails Americans who visit Paris. Supposedly Americans run wild in France and give Powell and his partners a lot of material. The film begins with Powell "helping" a gullible, rich American (Guy Kibbee)--saying he knows of a man who publishes a scandal sheet who is going to blackmail Kibbee. Powell "generously" agrees to arrange to pay off the blackmailer--who is Powell himself. Then, after fleecing Kibbee, he sets his sights on his niece (Lombard). The problem is that over time, Powell finds he's fallen for the lady and cannot bring himself to hurt her. When he tells her the truth, his life is turned upside down.While the plot is hard to believe, because Powell was such a wonderful actor it's easy to suspend disbelief and enjoy the movie. As for Lombard, she's just fine but isn't given as much of a part. While a good actress, the role could have been played by practically any young leading lady of the day.As far as the ending goes, this will no doubt alienate many viewers. While you'd assume there'd be some wonderfully magical happy ending, this film dares to go with realism--and in the end, everyone loses. An odd choice but at least it avoids the clichéd conclusion. I liked it but realize it's still a rather minor film--one that is very watchable but not much more.