Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)

Overrated

It is a performances centric movie

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

They meet on the Riviera - buying pajamas. This opening scene is a labored buildup for the hilarious payoff - one of those lauded Lubitsch 'touches'. My favorite scene from this film comes next. Colbert has left the dept store and is walking down the street, with Cooper walking fast to catch up. Colbert smiles knowingly to herself. Then Cooper strides past with narry a howdy-do and is gone. Now this IS a surprise and howlingly funny. But it doesn't make sense. Cooper is obviously smitten, but he ignores her. Further, how are they to get together when he doesn't know her name or address?The it-makes-no-sense-at-all plot has them marry and divorce. Now with alimony Colbert has money of her own and doesn't need to marry him for his money. She says this proves she loves him. Say again? After making him miserable and crazy, in the last 3 minutes the story wraps up happily and unconvincingly. Her goal was to cure her divorce inclined mate and make him a forever husband. But has this goal been accomplished? Along the way a bit of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew is tossed into the mix. We see Cooper reading 'Shrew' and then acting on what he has misread. In an hilarious scene he marches from his rooms to her rooms and does something that Petruchio would never have done to Kate, and Colbert swiftly sets him straight. It's been suggested that the script was a retelling of 'Shrew' with Colbert in the Petruchio role, but I, familiar with Shakespeare, don't see it. Oh, yes, Cooper spanks Colbert, just as Petruchio did Kate. But that's where the likeness ends.It IS fun watching Colbert make mincemeat out of Bluebeard. Colbert is an expert comedienne. Cooper less so. He's handsome and charming, but stolid where playful is required. Cooper had worked with Lubitsch 2 years earlier in 'Desire' with Marlene Dietrich, and he was excellent in this comedy. Apparently the problem in this film lies in the mismatch between Cooper's image and the Bluebeard character. Was Cary Grant not available? Or Melvyn Douglas? The film looks classy, except for the too obvious rear-projection scenes of the honeymoon couple walking the streets of European cities, which are jarring in this A-budget film. Colbert's costumes of ruffles, furs and spiffy hats are gorgeous. Colbert is gorgeous. I have long thought her chirpiness annoying, but in 'She Met Him in Paris', '3-Cornered Moon' and this film, all on the Colbert Collection set, she's perfection.In spite of the goofy plot and a not-quite-up-to-the-task Cooper, you'll enjoy watching these 2 great Stars deliver a lot of laughs.

Gary Cooper believes in marriage. In fact, he believes in it so much, he has done it seven times. Will new amour Claudette Colbert be the eighth and last one? Only 90 minutes will tell.Wealthy banker Cooper is in France and while desperately searching for pajama tops (he never wears the bottoms) he meets pretty Claudette Colbert who agrees to purchase the bottoms. This hysterical sequence (featuring some very funny obscure character actors fretting over how buying only pajama tops will lead to another revolution) leads into an even funnier sequence where a prissy hotel manager (Franklin Pangborn) takes Cooper to a hotel suite where he finds impoverished marquis Edward Everett Horton in bed and proceeds to kick Horton out. Cooper learns that Colbert is Horton's daughter and proceeds to scheme to make her his 8th wife. Cooper is not really a blue-beard, but the story focuses on how Colbert works to change her new husband into the man she intends to spend the rest of her life with.This was not a critical hit in its day, but in reflection, it is very good to look at and filled with a lot of droll humor that makes it lightly funny and very fast moving. Cooper and Colbert are lovely to look at, while the "veddy" British David Niven does what he can with a mostly miscast role (Colbert's French suitor who discovers that Cooper is his employer). The rest of the cast is a character actor lover's dream. To see Pangborn and Horton together is to compare the art of how two different types of "prissy" men made their characters so totally different, yet are remembered as the golden age of Hollywood's most notable obviously gay characters. Warren Hymer is his typical dumb tough guy as the prizefighter Colbert hires to make Cooper jealous. The always wonderful Elizabeth Patterson adds delicious imperiousness to her matriarchal character. Finally, Herman Bing is always good for a laugh (with his over-the-top accent) as Cooper's private detective who isn't above switching allegiances to Colbert if it brings him another buck or two.While Ernest Lubitsch's line of films has some credits that are certainly greater than this piece of French Pastry, the film is actually quite better than its reputation has made it out to be. Post-depression and pre-World War II audiences loved these art decco slices of strudel, and no studio did it better or more than Paramount. Forget about the premise of a charming rogue getting his comeuppance and just enjoy the fluff. You'll find your funny bone tickled as much as the champagne bubbles tickle Colbert and Cooper's noses. And just remember---that isn't a tub. It's a wash basin!

I have to agree with other reviews I've seen of this movie - despite some funny scenes and good lines, as a whole it just doesn't get off the ground, and Gary Cooper is wrong in the role of the much-married millionaire. Having said that, I love the scene where Claudette Colbert's character, talking about her financial difficulties, says: "Have you ever had a waiter look at you with untipped eyes? And when I ask the elevator boy for the fourth floor, he says 'Yes, Madame' and takes a detour through the basement." A small detail: in one scene Colbert is looking at a book called "Live Alone and Like It" which was an actual best-seller at the time.

Ernst Lubitsch was one of the greatest comic directors who ever lived, but no artist is without his failures. I don't blame him for this one, unless he was responsible for the casting.The story is of a filthy-rich jerk who marries and divorces any girl he wants to get into bed, and how his oh-so-poor-working-girl eighth wife puts him in his place. Gary Cooper is all wrong as the rich jerk, his own natural sweetness of character shines through the callous lines his character speaks, making him far too sympathetic. And Cooper's likeability makes Colbert's character completely unlikeable by comparison. When she makes him as miserable as the character actually deserves, Coop is so charming that I didn't cheer her for striking a blow in the battle of the sexes, I was horrified by her nastiness. Hey, I'd be his ninth wife!(To see Gary Cooper give a truly great comic performance, see "Ball of Fire" made in 1941)