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Candidates for the National Film Registry: Those Three French Girls & A Damsel in Distress

Introduction by Brian Taves

The famous humor novelist Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975) spent two sojourns in Hollywood writing directly for motion pictures, which in turn led to a number of satirical stories of filmmaking. Wodehouse was first summoned to Hollywood as a result of the coming of the sound and the search for script writers appropriate to the new medium, especially individuals with stage experience.

He arrived in town on May 8, 1930, and in October, his contract was renewed for another six months. He was initially set to work rewriting THOSE THREE FRENCH GIRLS, with a script ready by July 8. He was credited with the dialogue, with adaptation and continuity by Sylvia Thalberg, Frank Butler, from a story by Dale Van Every and Arthur Freed. The movie was shot in thirty days, and by mid-September was edited. It cost just over a quarter million dollars to produce, and upon release on October 11 was modestly profitable.

THOSE THREE FRENCH GIRLS starred Reginald Denny, an ideal choice in a very Wodehousian role as Larry, a wealthy, chivalrous, but not terribly bright young Englishman. He is introduced with a what-ho, and the dialogue for which Wodehouse received sole credit demonstrates his typical phraseology, highlighting his signature phrases to almost an excessive extent. MGM production chief Irving Thalberg hoped to distinguish THOSE THREE FRENCH GIRLS by the Wodehouse flavor.

Wodehouse was able to work at home and explained, "I really believe I must have had the softest job on record. A horde of scenarioists have constructed the picture, even to the extent of writing the dialogue. All I have had to do is revise and adapt their dialogue. And they never expect me to go near the studio unless there is a conference...." Fortunately, the Wodehouse dialogue is matched to a story that is very similar to his own in style, and verges on the musical comedy form, with several brief songs (resembling the many stage musicals on which he had collaborated). As Wodehouse had noted, despite the fact the script was a committee effort, he clearly also had a certain degree of input in the plot and characters.

THOSE THREE FRENCH GIRLS opens in France with Larry driving up as three girls, Charmain (Fifi D'Orsay), Madelon (Sandra Ravel), and Diane (Yola D'Avril), are arguing with their landlord over their eviction. Larry stops to help them, escalating the war of words by throwing flower-pots on the landlord's head (an idea Wodehouse had used in his stories, most prominently in his 1924 novel Leave It to Psmith). The fracas lands Larry and the girls in jail, where they are joined by two rowdy and musically-inclined Americans (played by Ed Brophy and Cliff Edwards, best remembered as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Disney's PINOCCHIO), veterans of the war who have returned to France.

While incarcerated, the men and women pair off, and eventually escape jail by fooling the police through behaving like monkeys. When their car is stranded in a storm, the six take refuge in a barn, where Larry declares his love to Charmain. Arriving at Larry's chateau the next morning, the butler warns Larry's uncle, the Earl of Ippleton (George Grossmith), of his involvement with Charmain. Ippleton tries to buy her off, but picks the wrong girl, then telling Charmain that he always has to bail Larry out of misbegotten love affairs. Charmain, angry, ends the engagement to Larry, refusing to let him explain that the one who had to be saved from romantic entanglements was, in fact, Ippleton.

Ippleton buys the three girls a modiste's shop; Charmain is now engaged to him, and Larry is bitter. The two Americans try to help by going to the girl's apartment during their morning bath, but only succeed in alienating them further. Larry has a plan, however; he drives his mini-automobile into his uncle's home the morning of the wedding, to assist with the rehearsal. Finally, by exposing Ippleton uncle as a confirmed old bachelor who is far too old and cantankerous for Charmain, Larry wins her back.

THOSE THREE FRENCH GIRLS, as directed by Harry Beaumont, is an amusing if uneven farce, belonging to the early days of sound cinema. Its style, together with the treatment of the women's motivations and costumes in a manner that was only allowed in this period before censorship, gives it an archaic feeling to modern audiences. For Wodehouse aficionados, it has special resonance because of his dialogue applied in a thorough way to an appropriate narrative and characters, and is the only film from his first stint in Hollywood to thoroughly reflect his contribution. Unfortunately, because of its lack of well-remembered stars, THOSE THREE FRENCH GIRLS is seldom seen today.

Sadly, although he had just begun in Hollywood, THOSE THREE FRENCH GIRLS was as close to a success as Wodehouse was to have at MGM; his only other credit was more minimal (THE MAN IN POSSESSION), and the other projects he worked on were not produced (adaptations of two of the plays on which he had collaborated, ROSALIE and CANDLELIGHT). The studio was apparently unwilling to film any of his novels. Wodehouse wrote, "Thalberg, the head man, told me that Leave It to Psmith was his favourite novel, but when I suggested that he should come across with money for the movie rights he merely smiled sheepishly and the matter dropped." (The novel would be filmed in England in 1933.) When considering a film around the Wodehouse character Jeeves, Thalberg was decided by a typical instant poll, deciding against buying film rights when he discovered that his chauffeur thought Jeeves was his wife's butcher.

Wodehouse's contract ended on May 9, 1931, when MGM did not renew it. On June 7, 1931, in an interview with Los Angeles Times correspondent Alma Whitaker, given at MGM's request, Wodehouse complained that he was receiving too much pay for too little work.

"I cannot see what they engaged me for. The motion picture business dazes me. They were extremely nice to me-oh, extremely--but I feel as if I have cheated them. It's all so unreasonable. You see, I understood I was engaged to write stories for the screen.... Yet apparently they had the greatest difficulty in finding anything for me to do. Twice during the year they brought completed scenarios of other people's stories to me and asked me to do some dialogue. Fifteen or sixteen people had tinkered with those stories. The dialogue was really quite adequate. All I did was touch it up here and there-very slight improvements.... That about sums up what I was called upon to do for my $104,000. Isn't it amazing? If it is only names they want, it seems such an expensive way to get them, doesn't it?"

Wodehouse's remarks resulted in a firestorm, which he summarized best himself. "That interview of mine seems to have had something of the effect of the late assassination at Sarajevo (which, if you remember, led to a nasty disturbance). I can't quite understand why, seeing that I only said what everybody has been saying for years, but apparently the fact that I gave figures and mentioned a definite studio in print has caused a sensation all over the world."

Shortly after leaving Hollywood, Wodehouse found himself committed to write six short stories about American characters set in the United States, and authored his first and sharpest satires on Hollywood, eventually collected as "the Mulliners of Hollywood" in the 1935 short story volume Blandings Castle. His first satirical novel about Hollywood, Laughing Gas, appeared in 1936, in which an Englishman and child star exchange bodies while under the ether. Ironically, that very same year Wodehouse would return to Hollywood for the second and last time.

Rarely does a novelist have the opportunity to participate in the adaptation of one of his own stories for the screen, but such was the case with Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975). The 1937 movie, A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS, was the first and only time he assisted in transposing his prose to film.

A Damsel in Distress had initially been filmed back in 1919, at the time of its original publication, in a version faithful to the novel. In 1928 Wodehouse had collaborated on a stage version with Ian Hay, which had condensed and rearranged some scenes for the limitations of the proscenium, while retaining the highlights of the book.

On the advice of George Gershwin, RKO producer Pandro Berman bought the screen rights to A Damsel in Distress in November 1936. Gershwin had collaborated in the theater with Wodehouse before he wrote the novel, and Gershwin believed that the character of the music writer named George Bevan in A Damsel in Distress was based on him. Gershwin's nine songs for the film were composed before the script was written, and he actually died during production of the movie. A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS had an unusual follow-up: in 1998, the score of the film, along with several songs Gershwin had written but which were not used in the picture, were included in a new stage musical of the Wodehouse novel, this time entitled A Foggy Day for one of the songs.

RKO was interested in filming A Damsel in Distress because the novel's romantic lead was a musical comedy composer, allowing a singer and dancer to be cast in the role--and RKO needed a Fred Astaire vehicle. Scripting was already well underway when Wodehouse was asked to assist in May 1937. As he wrote to his daughter, "I only expected to get a couple of weeks polishing the existing scripts. But that script turned out so badly that they threw it away, and I and another man [Ernest Pagano] started doing a new picture from the bottom up, following the story of the book pretty closely." Shooting took place from July 22 to October 16, while work on the script continued until September 25 (Wodehouse left on August 14); the final screenplay credits Wodehouse, Pagano, and S.K. Lauren. Wodehouse wrote, "I think I have made a big hit with my work on this picture. The other day, after they had been shooting, the director [George Stevens] rang me up to tell me he was so enthusiastic about my stuff that he had to call me up and tell me so! And I hear in roundabout ways that it has got over."

The recurring gag of everyone infectiously saying "Right-ho" to one another seems a nod to Wodehouse's presence on the movie. Similarly, the song "Stiff Upper Lip" is the most colloquial in its wording, and reminiscent of the Wodehouse prose in its lyrics. Like the Ian Hay stage version, A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS retained the basic plot outline of the novel, but unlike the play, the movie also deleted and merged a number of the characters, and added others, becoming a second, separate Wodehouse variation on the novel. Names are also changed: George Bevan becomes Jerry Halliday, and Maud becomes Alyce (although retaining her identity, not becoming the Alice Faraday of the novel).

To add box-office insurance, George Burns and Gracie Allen were brought in from Paramount to partner Astaire in gags and dance routines. Burns and Allen play Jerry's press agent and his secretary, using their own names as they did in most of their movies of this time. While their participation was definitely outside the original, and the humor different from the Wodehouse style, Burns and Allen provide the movie with additional amusement.

Joan Fontaine was cast opposite Astaire. She had just been placed under contract to RKO, and was only then emerging from low-budget films; her first successful starring role would not be until1940 with REBECCA. The casting of Burns and Allen was partly to compensate for the risk associated with placing a relative unknown as the love interest.

Whereas previous Astaire films had emphasized a partnership, and the grace of the romantic dancing duet with Ginger Rogers, A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS placed Astaire front and center, emphasizing the solitary aspect of his performance. Fontaine and Astaire have only one brief number together, simultaneously inviting comparison with Rogers yet demonstrating that she was unable to dance adequately opposite Astaire. Only the presence of Burns and Allen keep the entire picture from pivoting entirely on Astaire. The expectations of a romantic musical comedy usually call for a couple at the center, but A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS opts for a solitary lead, or at most a trio (when Burns and Allen are also on screen)-an inherent imbalance in the genre. Fontaine believed that the movie actually set her career back several years.

Reginald Gardiner had played the role of Percy, the antagonist in the romances, in the Hay version on the London stage. In the movie, by contrast, the character of Percy is eliminated, and Gardiner is cast as Keggs the butler, whose part is rewritten to take over much of the role played by both Reggie and Percy in the novel and the play. As a result, Keggs becomes a much more sprightly and unlikely character. For instance, rather than Percy, it is Keggs who follows Alyce to London, and ends up imprisoned when he believes Jerry is her secret boyfriend and has a scuffle with him. Gardiner was an ideal choice, an English comedian in the same tradition as Wodehouse.

Reggie's much reduced part is played by bandleader Ray Noble, with his only distinguishing trait being an addiction to swing. Reggie has a brief romance with Gracie before she decides to instead marry George Burns (in the movie). The secondary romances in the novel and the play, of Reggie and Alice Faraday, and Lord Marshmoreton and Billie Dore, are eliminated in the movie, along with both of these female characters.

In the movie, Alyce's father remains the curmudgeonly Lord Marshmoreton (ideally portrayed by Montagu Love), whose joy is his garden and delivers Jerry's message to his daughter, supporting the romance. Constance Collier ferociously portrays Lady Caroline, who only agrees to the wedding of Jerry and Alyce to avoid a scandal. Unlike the stage play, in which the novel's Albert the page becomes Albertina, Albert in the movie remains his original impish self. As portrayed by Harry Watson, Albert hopes to preserve his stake in the drawing against Kegg's machinations.

Instead of the novel and play's opening with the meeting of the future romantic couple, the movie begins by establishing the conflict between the family's determination to sequester Alyce in the castle and her desire for love. In the servant's hall, a lottery offers the names of Alyce's prospective suitors, introducing the interplay between Keggs and Albert to see who will win the prize. As in the novel, Albert's support helps foster the romance, but in the movie it is the crucial motivating factor, with the page writing a spurious note from Alyce that spurs Jerry's interest. In the book and play, by contrast, it was a case of love at first sight for a man who has avoided women as a consequence of his life in the theater. In the movie, Jerry yearns for a real woman, after his publicist, George Burns, has concocted fictional romances for the gossip columns that have given him legions of giddy feminine followers.

Jerry first visits Alyce's home, "Totleigh Castle" (already renamed in the play from the novel's "Belpher Castle"), with Burns and Allen, who join Kegg's weekly public tour of the grounds. Gracie uses her typical combination of ignorance and malapropisms to befuddle her guide. He shows the visitors the site of Leonard's Leap, a dangerous escape from a castle balcony in the middle ages to preserve a lady's honor. Jerry, refused entrance by Keggs, gets in through a ruse of Albert, and meets Alyce upstairs. When she seems unwilling to discuss love, he convinces her to talk about it in the third person, consequently failing to realize she loves someone else. However, Jerry must make a quick exit onto the balcony, where Albert drops him a sheet to climb to safety, convincing Alyce that Jerry must have escaped by heroically repeating the legendary Leonard's Leap. As he leaves the grounds, Jerry gives a note for Alyce to Marshmoreton, assuming he is the gardener. Jerry moves into "Leonard's Manor" instead of the novel's cottage "down by Platt's," and the visiting Marshmoreton soon clarifies his identity. He even serves to confirm his daughter's love for Jerry, believing he is the American ski instructor she truly loves.

In these sequences, ideas from the novel are used, but combined with fresh material, as the movie increasingly strays from the source. Some of the incidents most directly inspired by the novel seem awkward on the screen, such as the cab fracas, and Keggs and Albert overhearing key events, trading drawing tickets.

Reggie is supposed to propose to Alyce at a local fair, but when Jerry arrives ahead of him and kisses Alyce, he receives a slap in the face. (The movie's subsequent fun house sequence is the musical and choreographic hightlight.) Afterward, Alyce tells her father she now loves Jerry, and Marshmoreton explains why Jerry believed she loved him. (The film dispenses completely with the climactic meeting with her previous lover, now grown fat and obnoxious, that in the novel and play made her realize her true love; as a result, Alyce seems to be fickle in the movie.) Meanwhile, Jerry is thoroughly confused when Alyce goes to the Manor to say she loves him, and urges him to come to the evening ball at the Castle. The advancing romance is abruptly halted when Burns places a newspaper item citing Alyce as lover Jerry's 28th victim. This time it is Keggs who helps Jerry into Totleigh, now that he has taken the lottery ticket for Jerry from Albert. Only when Jerry is compelled to truly perform Leonard's Leap, through the trees and onto the ground, does Alyce realize she loves him.

A major screen credit seemed to open up the possibility of a new career for Wodehouse, but when A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS was released on November 19, it proved to be the first Astaire picture to lose money at the box office. This was probably inevitable; after seven vehicles together, audiences had grown accustomed to seeing Astaire paired with Ginger Rogers, and reviewers inevitably compared Fontaine unfavorably. The failure of A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS would compel Astaire to make two more movies with Rogers, although their reunion in CAREFREE (1938) also met with a lukewarm boxoffice reception. Hence, the reaction to A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS was hardly unique for an Astaire picture at this point in his career. However, the disappointing box-office results must have stung Wodehouse, not only because of his involvement in its creation, but because his name had become a more prominent part of advertising and promotion than on any of the previous films from his novels. Subsequently, few movies were made from Wodehouse sources, although in decades to come he would be far more successfully adapted for television.

M/B/RS staff member Brian Taves (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is author of Robert Florey, The French Expressionist (Scarecrow Press, 1987).