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Bluebeard's Eighth Wife ( Blue beard's Eighth Wife ) ( Bluebeard's 8th Wife ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Spain ]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A wealthy American who has had many ex-wives, walks into a department store on the Riveria to buy pajamas and walks out with a girl he determines to make into his eighth wife. The famed sophisticated comedy direction Ernst Lubitsch felt he could take Cooper out of his realm and make him into a sophisticated gentleman. Gary may have been one off-screen, but he couldn't give such an illusion on screen A Mr. Deeds, yes, but unfortunately not the hero of this piece. Cooper and Colbert work well together, despite this handicap and Lubitsch sprinkled fun throughout. However, the moviegoing public turned their all-knowing thumbs down at this little lark in 1938 and it lost money. It's not a bad depression-era comedy but it has a dickens of a time trying to pass off Gary as multi-marrying multi-millionaire. Put seven divorced wives behind Mr. Deeds, each with a $50,000 a year settlement, and it becomes pretty hard to believe that he's just a small boy at heart - which was precisely the charm of Paramount's gangling hero..........A slim but funny little comedy has Colbert and Cooper race happily through each unexpected episode. Coop is not altogether at ease in the role of a cosmopolitan banker, but he saves the part from being a caricature, and when the action permits, he cuts loose with splendid comic results.

When I saw this movie, I didn't understand why it is considered as one of lubitsch's worst comedies by the American critics! I couldn' t stop laughing (especially during the excellent scene of the "ognions kiss"). It is far better than most of the 30's screwball comedies (but of course, it is not as genial as Lubitsch's masterpieces like "To be or not to be" or "Trouble in paradise"). Critics are always difficult with a genius like Lubitsch. Watch it, you will spend a good time ! 4 1/2 stars !

I can't possibly rate this movie any less than 5 stars! The performances are great, and all this about Cooper not being able to be credible as a multi-millionaire playboy is ridiculous. The movie certainly has the "Lubitsch touch" and if full of fun and innuendo. I think those who gave it a so-so rating are taking it much too seriously. It's a fun, late 30's movie, so don't let the tepid reviews stop you from watching a good amusing flick. Claudette Colbert is great in her role, and Edward Everett Horton is superb as always. WATCH THIS ONE!

Leonard Maltin called this film contrived and weak-- it is no such thing. Me and a few of my friends watched this movie, and though they're not particularly fond of classic film, they nevertheless loved Bluebeard, a sure sign of its greatness. Gary Cooper, in the role of the oft-married man, romances Colbert into becoming his eighth wife. Being a man who never learns from his mistakes, Cooper just keeps on making more and more of 'em. There are lots of laugh-out-loud funny jokes, both verbal and physical, and the movie has a very Parisian feel, or the Lubitsch touch, if you will. I certainly am very fond of this movie, and it's now one of my favourites. Don't listen to that movie critic; give this movie a try- you may just like it! My only complaint would be that we never got to see Gary Cooper without his pyjama bottoms, but that old man with skinny legs paraded around without 'em. Not much of a complaint, but I was hoping we'd at least get a glimpse of Cooper's sexy gams.

This somewhat obscure classic has been one of my favorite movies for a long time. Gregory Peck's ever-present dignity takes a beating as he woos lovely Claudette Colbert in his pajamas, in a bathtub and in a straitjacket. There may be some elements of the movie that wouldn't fly in these Politically Correct times, but that doesn't mean you can't laugh at them here! A must see!

What do you get when you combine a brilliant director, top writers, and A list movie stars with a great screwball premise? Unfortunately, in this case a competent but less than "classic" film.

I was anxious to see this film mostly because I have found so many of Claudette Colbert's comedies to be so enjoyable. I also love Billy Wilder's style of humor. I had read an interview with Billy Wilder, and he was discussing the opening scene of this movie as one of his more memorable as a scriptwriter. Watching the first scene I could see why Wilder remembered it so fondly. They were able to build so much humor and innuendo out of that silly situation of a man who walks into a store and only wants to buy the top half of a pair of pajamas; and bumping into a woman in the store who only wants to buy the bottom ( remember the "Code"). Of course, these two will become romantically entwined, and this "goofy" chance meeting sets the tone of the movie.

In short: a rich American businessman meets a beautiful local lady in Nice whose petty aristocratic family is a bit down on their luck. He asks to marry her and she is eventually smitten ( after the obligatory resistance to his arrogance), but on their wedding day she finds out he has already been married 7 times. She goes through with the marriage anyway ( she really does love him), ostensibly for the money, but she really wants to teach him a lesson about his cavalier attitude toward matrimony. And off we go with a "battle of the sexes".

The problem with much of the movie is that Gary Cooper just doesn't have the right acting style or "delivery" to make the witty dialogue and sly humor pay off. It always feels like he is acting, and like he is slightly "off key", and it deadens the humor in what are some very funny situations with some very funny lines. Something about him is just not compatible to this style of humor. I compare him unfavorably to Joel McCrea who had a similar screen persona, but who was actually very effective in screwball-type comedies ( "Palm Beach Story" with Colbert, "The More the Merrier").

Claudette Colbert, on the other hand was perfectly suited to this genre of comedy, and she performs well in this film, as do the rest of the well-known cast ( an exception is David Niven who is rather bland). She even pulls through some of the plot devices that seem a little contrived ( she is very convincing as a woman who has had too much to drink and lets her guard down).

While this movie does not measure up to the top screwball comedies, it is still a pleasure to see what highly talented scriptwriters and directors could do for laughs by being clever and subtle; and in spite of the restrictive censorship Code.

A wealthy American playboy (Gary Cooper) goes into a shop to buy some pajamas and leaves enchanted by the woman he will soon marry (Claudette Colbert). He blatantly pursues her only to find that she isn't interested in him. He begins to win over her father (Edward Everett Horton), buying a Louis XV bathtub that resembles a washbasin, a contraption that he has absolutely no use for. Through stubborness and charm, he finally wins her over. At the wedding, he casually breaks that news that he has been married before- seven times. She feels duped and decides that they will live in a business partnership with no emotions whatsoever. He does his best to seduce her with wine, good food, and soft lighting, but she also has tricks up her sleeve.

A fun movie with a good cast, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife has many plot twists and might be a little confusing, but it is never dull. It is rather fun to see Cooper horsing around, and actor who often played slow-speaking, non-comedic roles. Colbert is gorgeous as always and really knows her way around a comic scene. The two shine together in the "Taming of the Shrew" scene and the dinner thereafter. This isn't your typical Lubitsch comedy, which focuses heavily on dialogue. Instead, this is more of a physical adventure with plenty of punches.

PLOT: WEALTHY Gary Cooper is drawn to Cinderella girl (Claudette Colbert) and wants to Marry her~ she finds out he has been married 7 times before and decides she will drive HIM nuts so she get that HEFTY divorce settlement she DESERVES~ classic battle of the sexes FUN

Scraping by on the Riviera is lovely Nicole (Claudette Colbert) yes if you are poor "do so on the Riviera~ LOL...any way wealthy Gary Cooper spots her and he decides this girl is for HIM~ a courtship that is funny and he "offers her a deal" lots of money to marry HIM and MORE if HE divorces her~ so they get married ...ON the Wedding Day which is very funny~ Nicole (Colbert) find her NEW husband has been "married 7 times before" LIKE the song~ ha~ so she has a new "scheme".....teach him for not being HONEST with her~ she will drive HIM nuts and he will give her THAT divorce so fast and she will claim the money she feels she "deserves'....Colbert made one rule with Cooper he can ONLY touch her when she "gives her permission"~ clever fun twist~ soon Cooper tries just about every way he knows how to "persuade" his new wife to consumate their marriage~ but clever schemer Nicole is busy FAKING a new lover to make HIM "mad" enough to dump her~ the ENDLESS Hell Colbert puts Cooper through is very very funny~ the end is not what I expected but this is a totally clever funny movie. Cooper is very funny as the love sick husband.....Colbert as the clever wife dying for a "divorce"....is beyond funny~ Cooper should have done more Comedies he was better than I ever knew~

I GIVE A SOLID 10 OUT OF 10~

BLUEBEARD'S EIGHTH WIFE is a near-miss screwball farce. Claudette Colbert's undoing of her playboy husband Gary Cooper has some wonderfully humorous moments. But the parts are greater than the whole. However, if you watch this as a forerunner to the Cooper/Wilder masterpiece, LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, made 20 years later, it is an extremely fascinating film. Wilder made LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON as a tribute to his idol, Ernst Lubitsch, who directed this. Cooper's jaded, aging roue works far better in AFTERNOON than here in BLUEBEARD, perhaps because screwball farce wasn't the right style for the plotline. That said, it is very much worth watching. It just isn't top-drawer, that's all.

This is a good news/bad news scenario. The bad news is that this is easily one of the worst films that Ernst Lubitsch ever made. The good news is that it is still pretty decent. Lubitsch set the standard by which all other comedy directors are to be judged, and he produced a body of film comedies that no other director can match. Nonetheless, he did not meet his own extraordinary standards in this film. Billy Wilder, who wrote the screenplay for this film, probably came in a distant second for a career, and Preston Sturges had a five-year run that surpassed any five-year run by any director in film history, but alas, he burned out too quickly. Howard Hawks could match Lubitsch at his best, but Hawks never focused on any one genre for very long. His best comedies stand up to the best work of anyone, but he simply didn't direct that many comedies.

The problem with this film is the central premise of the story, and therefore the fault can either be laid before Billy Wilder for the story or Lubitsch for not changing it. At the heart of the film is a bit of sadism. Claudette Colbert agrees to marry Gary Cooper on condition that he pay her a set amount of money if he agrees to divorce her. She then refuses to sleep with him, and through refusing to consummate their marriage, she literally drives him insane. Then, after he agrees to a divorce in the asylum (the scene where he maniacally repeats to himself, "I feel fine, I feel very, very fine" is one of the few embarrassing moments in any Lubitsch film), she comes back to marry him because she now has her own money. None of this is very convincing. I personally lay the fault before Wilder, because while he is one of my favorite directors, he was also capable of more than a little malevolence towards his main characters (think of the tortures through which he puts Jack Lemmon's C. C. Baxter in THE APARTMENT or William Holden's character in SUNSET BOULEVARD, who begins his narration of the story as a corpse floating in a swimming pool, or, even better, having Ray Milland think he has fallen in love with a 12-year-old girl in THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR).

There is also a major problem with casting. As great as Gary Cooper could be, he is just not terribly convincing as a multi-millionaire. The guy was a cowboy before he became an actor (though he had also spent most of his teens living in England), and that Western edge never rubbed off. He was enormously convincing in any part that allowed him to portray a commoner, but hoi polloi was not on his resume.

Nonetheless, Lubitsch was still Lubitsch, and while the movie doesn't hang together very well as a whole, there are hordes of magnificent individual moments. The bit about the pajama tops and bottoms is great, and nearly any scene with Edward Everett Horton is great. The scene where Claudette Colbert hires a pugilist to pretend to be her paramour is well done. But none of this covers up the fact that the story as a whole just isn't very pleasant.

Anyone seeing this but not having seen much else by Lubitsch should immediately go see one of his better films. His finest, in my opinion, is probably TROUBLE IN PARADISE, but there are many others readily available that are very nearly as good, including NINOTCHKA, HEAVEN CAN WAIT, THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, THE MERRY WIDOW, or the extraordinary TO BE OR NOT TO BE. I will add that a few of his very finest early sound films--THE LOVE PARADE, MONTE CARLO, and the delightful ONE HOUR WITH YOU--are unfortunately not available at this time.