The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (film)
- November 14, 1935 (1935-11-14)
The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo is a 1935 American romantic comedy film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Stephen Roberts, and starred Ronald Colman, Joan Bennett, and Colin Clive. The screenplay was written by Nunnally Johnson and Howard Smith, based on a play by Ilya Surgutchoff and Frederick Albert Swan. The film was inspired by the song of the same name popularised by Charles Coborn.
Plot
In Monte Carlo, Paul Gaillard, an impoverished Russian exiled aristocrat, has a fabulous run of luck, breaking the bank at the baccarat table. His winnings, ten million francs, are so vast he needs a suitcase (which he brought with him) to carry away the banknotes. The management desperately tries to entice him to stay, strewing various signs of good luck (four-leaf clovers, a horseshoe, even a hunchback) in his path, to no avail. Even worse from their viewpoint, Paul is quoted in the newspapers advising people to stay away from Monte Carlo.
On the train, Paul encounters the beautiful Helen Berkeley when they share a table in the dining car. He overhears her and her male companion talking about Switzerland. In Paris, he goes to the Cafe Russe, where he shares the money with the staff. They scrimped and saved for ten years to build up their initial stake.
The next day, Paul and his servant Ivan take the train to Interlaken, Switzerland. By chance, Helen is mistakenly placed in Paul's compartment. He takes the opportunity to try to charm her, but is rebuffed. He is delighted, however, to learn that the man with her is her brother Bertrand. Paul pursues her with great persistence, and it finally pays off. They spend time together.
Then Helen confides that she is unhappy because she is going to marry a 63-year-old for money, not for herself, but for her brother, who needs 5 million francs. Paul offers her nearly 4 million, his share of the winnings. She does not accept, but asks him to spend a week with her in Monte Carlo. He agrees. It turns out she is a back street music hall performer who was hired to lure him back, but she cannot go through with it, having fallen in love with him. Too ashamed to face Paul again, she secretly departs for Paris. When he discovers she has vanished, he makes a bargain with her brother: he will get the money Bertrand supposedly needs desperately in return for his sister's location. Bertrand lies and tells him that she went to Monte Carlo. Helen runs into Bertrand at the train station and learns what he has done. She rushes to Monte Carlo.
Paul returns to the baccarat table. When Helen enters the club to try to stop him, she is intercepted by the management and kept a virtual prisoner. Paul loses nearly all his money, but then his luck changes and he goes on another winning streak and he is on the verge of breaking the bank again. However, he loses everything on the last bet. When Paul leaves, he sees Helen and Bertrand emerge from the manager's office; he congratulates them. He returns to work driving a taxi.
By chance, he takes a fare to a nightclub where Helen is performing. He dons his black tie and tails and goes inside. He dances one dance with Helen and pretends to still be fairly well off, before driving away. Helen chases after him in another taxi, finally catching up with him at the Cafe Russe. When she discovers he is the driver, not a passenger, she is ecstatic. Now that he is poor, she can tell him that she loves him. They embrace. Then he takes her inside the closed Cafe Russe, where he and the staff, Russian nobility like him, are privately celebrating the late Czar Nicholas II's birthday in a grand manner.
Cast
- Ronald Colman as Paul Gaillard
- Joan Bennett as Helen Berkeley
- Colin Clive as Bertrand Berkeley
- Nigel Bruce as Ivan
- Montagu Love as Director
- Frank Reicher as 2nd Asst. Director
- Lionel Pape as 3rd Asst. Director
- Ferdinand Gottschalk as Office Man
- Andre Cheron as Dealer
- Lynn Bari as Flower Girl (uncredited)
- John Carradine as Despondent Casino Gambler (uncredited)
- E. E. Clive as Waiter (uncredited)
- Dennis O'Keefe as Onlooker at Casino (uncredited)
Reception
Andre Sennwald, critic for The New York Times, was unimpressed, writing, "Commonplace in its plot workings and meager in gayety, the film misuses a promising comic idea."[1] While he appreciated the performances of Colman, Clive and Bruce, he found that "Miss Bennett, to put it politely, is pretty badly miscast, her wooden charm and vocal monotony having almost nothing to do with the lady of mystery that she is pretending to be."[1]
Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a tepid review, describing it as "a mildly agreeable comedy", and characterizing Ronald Colman as "an excellent director's dummy" and "an almost perfect actor for the fictional screen". Green's criticism of the film came mainly from the plotline involving the White Russians. According to Green, "I can never appreciate the pathos of princes who have become taxi-drivers and drink coffee essence instead of champagne; unlike other taxi-drivers they have had their champagne".[2]
Copyright case
After the film was released, the publisher of the song sued the studio in Francis, Day & Hunter Ltd v Twentieth Century Fox Corp in the Supreme Court of Ontario, Canada, over the copyright. After two appeals, the publisher lost on all counts.
See also
- Charles Wells, the inspiration for the song "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo"
- Men who broke the bank at Monte Carlo
References
- ^ a b Andre Sennwald (November 15, 1935). "The Screen; Ronald Colman in 'The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo,' at the Radio City Music Hall". The New York Times.
- ^ Greene, Graham (7 February 1936). "Dr Socrates/The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo/The Imperfect Lady". The Spectator. (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. p. 50. ISBN 0192812866.)
External links
- The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo at the TCM Movie Database
- The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo at IMDb
- The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo at AllMovie
- v
- t
- e
- Old San Francisco (1927)
- The First Auto (1927)
- The Jazz Singer (1927)
- Tenderloin (1928)
- The Show of Shows (1929)
- Three Faces East (1930)
- The Doorway to Hell (1931)
- Little Caesar (1931)
- Illicit (1931)
- The Public Enemy (1931)
- The Man Who Played God (1932)
- The Rich Are Always with Us (1932)
- Doctor X (1932)
- Life Begins (1932)
- The Cabin in the Cotton (1932)
- Three on a Match (1932)
- 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
- Parachute Jumper (1933)
- 42nd Street (1933)
- The Working Man (1933)
- Ex-Lady (1933)
- The Bowery (1933)
- Blood Money (1933)
- Moulin Rouge (1934)
- Looking for Trouble (1934)
- Born to Be Bad (1934)
- Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1934)
- The Mighty Barnum (1934)
- Folies Bergère de Paris (1935)
- Les Misérables (1935)
- Cardinal Richelieu (1935)
- Call of the Wild (1935)
- Metropolitan (1935)
- Thanks a Million (1935)
- The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (1935)
- Professional Soldier (1935)
- The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936)
- It Had to Happen (1936)
- A Message to Garcia (1936)
- Under Two Flags (1936)
- The Road to Glory (1936)
- Poor Little Rich Girl (1936)
- Sing, Baby, Sing (1936)
- Pigskin Parade (1936)
- Seventh Heaven (1937)
- Slave Ship (1937)
- Wee Willie Winkie (1937)
- Wake Up and Live (1937)
- Thin Ice (1937)
- Lancer Spy (1937)
- In Old Chicago (1938)
- Happy Landing (1938)
- International Settlement (1938)
- Kentucky Moonshine
- Always Goodbye (1938)
- Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938)
- Just Around the Corner (1938)
- Little Miss Broadway (1938)
- My Lucky Star (1938)
- Submarine Patrol (1938)
- Jesse James (1939)
- Tail Spin (1939)
- Wife, Husband and Friend (1939)
- The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
- Rose of Washington Square (1939)
- Stanley and Livingstone (1939)
- The Rains Came (1939)
- Hollywood Cavalcade (1939)
- Swanee River (1939)
- The Little Princess (1939)
- The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
- Little Old New York (1940)
- The Man I Married (1940)
- The Return of Frank James (1940)
- The Great Profile (1940)
- Brigham Young (1940)
- Down Argentine Way (1940)
- The Mark of Zorro (1940)
- Hudson's Bay (1941)
- Tobacco Road (1941)
- The Great American Broadcast (1941)
- Blood and Sand (1941)
- A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941)
- How Green Was My Valley (1942)
- Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (1942)
- Sex Hygiene (Short) (1942)
- To the Shores of Tripoli (1942)
- This Above All (1942)
- Thunder Birds (1942)
- The Purple Heart (1944)
- Wilson (1944)
- Winged Victory (1944)
- The Razor's Edge (1946)
- Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
- Fury at Furnace Creek (1948)
- The Snake Pit (1948)
- Pinky (1949)
- Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
- No Way Out (1950)
- All About Eve (1950)
- David and Bathsheba (1951)
- People Will Talk (1951)
- Viva Zapata! (1952)
- The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)
- The Egyptian (1954)
- The View from Pompey's Head (1955)
- The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956)
- Island in the Sun (1957)
- The Sun Also Rises (1957)
- The Roots of Heaven (1958)
- Crack in the Mirror (1960)
- Sanctuary (1961)
- The Big Gamble (1961)
- The Longest Day (1962)
- The Chapman Report (1962)
- The Visit (1964)
as Mark Canfield |
|
---|---|
as Melville Crossman |
|
as Gregory Rogers |
|
as self |
|
- Virginia Fox (wife)
- Richard D. Zanuck (son)
- Dean Zanuck (grandson)