On the Riviera *** (1951, Danny Kaye, Gene Tierney, Corinne Calvet, Marcel Dalio, Jean Murat) – Classic Movie Review 7661

Director Walter Lang’s 1951 Technicolor musical comedy On the Riviera is a fine and dandy vehicle for Danny Kaye, who has fun in two parts as Jack Martin, an American song and dance man adept at impressions, and Henri Duran, a former French soldier. Kaye won the Golden Globe for Best Actor – Comedy or Musical, though he was not even nominated at the Oscars.

Gene Tierney co-stars as Lili Duran, who talks Kaye into masquerading as her roving industrialist husband Henri, with the usual comic complications.

This bright and bubbly tale about dodgy goings-on on the French Riviera is based on the 1935 Maurice Chevalier film Folies Bergère [Folies Bergère de Paris], in turn based on the play by Rudolph Lothar and Hans Adler. It was first remade by Fox studios as That Night in Rio (1941) starring Don Ameche, Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda.

Tierney, Corinne Calvet as Colette, Marcel Dalio as Philippe Lebrix and Jean Murat as Felix Periton make up the attractive star support and the lively location brings out the cast’s sunny attitudes. But it is Kaye’s show in a tour-de-force of slapstick, comedy, song and dance, all showcased in an effective screenplay by Valentine Davies, Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron.

Alfred Newman earned an Oscar nomination for the music and there was a second Oscar nomination for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (Lyle R Wheeler, Leland Fuller, Joseph C Wright, Thomas Little, Walter M Scott).

The songs are by Kaye’s wife, Sylvia Fine.

Kaye reprised the idea in 1961’s On the Double.

Also in the cast are Henri Letondal, Clinton Sundberg, Sig Ruman, Joyce MacKenzie, Monique Chantal, Marina Koshetz, Ann Codee, Mari Blanchard and Ethel Martin.

The colour painting of Gene Tierney over the fireplace is from the black and white Laura (1944). 

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7661

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