Song of Paris

Sing Along with Me

Judgment Deferred

Where’s Charley?

Mother Riley Meets the Vampire

Meet Me Tonight

Down among the Z Men

Tread Softly

February

Alternately romantic and farcical, played at speed with attractive musical sequences, Song of Paris is an effective exemplar of international relations enacted by its three leads: French Anne Vernon as cabaret star Clementine, Dennis Price as stiff-necked Matthew Ibbetson, head of Ibbetson’s Stomach Pills dynasty, and Russian Mischa Auer as Marcel, con-man pretender to the title of Comte de Sarliac. An Adelphi production filmed at Nettlefold Studios (budgetary restrictions prohibited a visit to Paris), the light-headed comedy, based on a story by William Rose, was produced by Roger Proudlock and written by Allan Mackinnon with additional material by Frank Muir and Denis Norden. The results have a fresh sense of fun about them, as when Mrs Ibbetson receives a bunch of flowers from an admirer: ‘Take off your things and I’ll put them in water.’ Its director John Guillermin pronounced it ‘a piece of nonsense’.

Romance between Matthew and Clementine blooms with her recommendation ‘Let’s Stay Home’ by Francis Lopez, but a well-constructed development gathers its skirts for a very funny finale when Marcel challenges Matthew to a duel. Jean Dréjac’s ‘Chanson de Paris’ evokes a Parisian atmosphere that finds perfect expression in Vernon’s lively, warm characterisation. The MFB judged that ‘Though it comes close to buffoonery at times [it does, wonderfully], both characters and presentation have life.’ Curiously, it also pigeon-holed it as ‘a comedy in the Wilcox–Neagle tradition’, which some may have taken as a negative comment. Viewers can be assured that its air of mischievousness is far removed from any Wilcox production.

Under the thumb of his disapproving, dominating mother (Hermione Baddeley on top form), Matthew is obliged to go to visit Paris, under strict instructions from mother that he will remember he is visiting a ‘sink of iniquity’ and must not stay the night. He does, after seeing Clementine beguile her audience with Rudolf Goer’s ‘Just a Song of Paris’. Almost at once, Matthew relaxes. Clementine follows him to London with Marcel, who means to marry her, and Matthew passes them off to his mother as aristocrats.