Paradise for Two (1937) User Reviews

The French say "Ta-Ta"

[boblipton · 6/10 · 21 February 2017]

GAIETY GIRLS stars Jack Hulbert and Patricia Ellis as very French people. Everyone is very French, even Googie Withers and Finlay Currie, even though they speak and behave exactly like Britons.

Actually, it's one of those movies which is set in Paris for no reason whatsoever. It might have been set in London or New York City or any place where some one might be expected to put on a leg show. There is one joke about Devil's Island that would have had to be rewritten, but that's about the limit of its Frenchness

Also, the characters would have to be renamed. Hulbert is Rene Martin, a very rich financier. Miss Ellis is Jeannette DuPont, a dancer in a leg show, who gets a lift from Hulbert's chauffeur in his swanky saloon car, so of course, their names are linked. Arthur Riscoe promotes her to the star of the show to convince creditors that they should trust him and to meet Hulbert to get him to put money in the show. In the meantime, Jack Hulbert hears about this rumor, investigates in person and falls in love with Miss Ellis at first sight. She mistakes him for a newspaper reporter, but asks him to impersonate Jack Hulbert....

The complications come fast and very amusingly, the songs are unmemorable but not too bad, and for some reason the financier can dance like...well, he can dance like Jack Hulbert, which is pretty good. It's all absolute nonsense that doesn't take itself seriously for a moment. It entertains with no strains. As the French would say, it's a pip.

Silly but fun British B musical.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 1 August 2022]

Warner Brothers contract player Patricia Ellis went over to England to star in this silly musical about a showgirl who uses the fake story of being involved with a wealthy British aristocrat after being given a lift by his chauffeur as career building publicly. Little does she know that he's backing the show she gets a major part in and poses as a reporter in order to meet the girl who's associated with him romantically when they've never met.

Jack Hulbert is vedy, vedy British and Ellis quite the typical blonde bombshell American starlet, and they seem to be having a good time clowning around and singing and dancing here. It's a very silly story, but then again most musicals of the 1930s were. There's also Googie Withers as a fellow chorus girl, and in an unbilled part Martita Hunt as a gossip columnist. The songs are enjoyable but not really catchy, and there are a few lavish moments on stage as well. But it's pretty generic stuff, easy to enjoy, with the viewer certain they've probably seen this Cinderella plot somewhere else.

familiar jack hulbert musical

[malcolmgsw · 5/10 · 3 December 2006]

I purchased this off ebay.It was a VHS copy of a battered 16mm print.So i suppose that i have not seen this film in all its pristine glory.Nor have British TV audiences which is presumably why this film has not managed to attract 5 votes and remains an unseen quantity.It has to be said that if you have never seen this film then you really haven't missed much.It is really like all the other Jack Hulbert films you have seen before.What might seem an engaging personality the first time around becomes a bit of a bore when you are seeing it for the sixth or more time.Interestingly enough whilst he made a lot of films in the 1930s his film career seemed to more or less dry up after "Under Your Hat" in 1940.In conclusion therefore unless you are a die-hard Jack Hulbert fan don't bother to try and locate this film.