Man of the World (1931)

You won't be disappointed!

As Good As It Gets

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Man of the World (1931) suffers from dreary pacing and uncertain tone.If this were a B- picture starring unknowns, I'd say it had a lot to recommend it—A lovingly rendered fake Paris, a bittersweet romance, charismatic actors... but for a Powell-Lombard picture, it's a disappointing slog. The primary issue is pacing. Editing is sluggish —static medium shot after static medium shot—and the dialogue really drags. In a film about romance between con-artists, and socialites, you'd expect witty dialogue to come fast and furiously, but in Man ofThe World, actors deliver their lines at a solemn and stately pace, so what should be an exciting whirl of romance and scandal becomes weirdly glum.Further, there's not nearly enough time spent on the courtship between Lombard and Powell. Sure, he seems suave and sophisticated, while she seems pleasant and attractive, but they don't share much screen time. And when they do, there's no electricity. They don't bandy or bicker,they just fall into a pleasant little romance because the script tells them to.Weirdly, far more time is given over to the unhappy relationship between Powell and ex-lover Wynne Gibson (a stiff, unappealing performer). Despite the movie's premise—an adventurous socialite falls for a charming blackmailer—this isn't really a Lubitsch-style romantic comedy. It's not nearly fun enough. So I guess it's a failed drama? I did like the story itself, particularly the unexpected ending (which I won't reveal). This is one from the vaults that deserves remaking morethan reverence.

... and yet I give it a mediocre rating, not a poor one. That's because who would expect an early 30's film starring William Powell, Carole Lombard, and Guy Kibbee with strong support by Wynne Gibson to be anything less than excellent? I know I wouldn't. The film is tortuously slow after starting out with a couple of promising scenes. The film opens with drunken American Harry Taylor (Guy Kibbee) accosting Michael Trevor (William Powell) on the streets of Paris thinking he was somebody else - he is. It turns out Trevor is an alias for an expatriate who was a stand-up journalist in America but had to take it on the lam after he got left holding the bag for something that is never clearly explained. At any rate, in the film Michael later explains that after he paid wrongfully for someone else's misdeed he decided he would start making others pay. Thus he starts a blackmailing racket in Paris without anybody truly knowing who he is but his two partners - Fred and Irene (Wynne Gibson). He has one rule though - he never victimizes women. He ends up blackmailing Harry Taylor for some fling with a blonde, but makes it look like he's doing him a favor by being a go-between for the unscrupulous scandal sheet operator that will print the news and Harry. This ends all of the clever scenes in the movie. Carole Lombard plays Harry's niece, Mary, who instantly falls for Michael, and the feeling is mutual. Michael wants to make a clean breast of his past to Mary, leave the crooked life behind him and marry the girl.The monkey wrench in the works? Wynne Gibson as Irene - she's Michael's ex and she's none too happy about it. She spends the rest of the movie being a shameless clinging back-stabbing harpy to the point where you want to chase her off with a mallet and let the two lovers have a happy ending.The acting and production values are the reason I give this one even five stars. William Powell's acting is the centerpiece of this film and he splendidly conveys - without that much dialogue - the persona of a man of the world with the weight of the world on his shoulders. However, the pace is awful, the conclusion will leave a bad taste in your mouth, and normally I would blame the director for such great performers putting my feet to sleep at times, but director Robert Wallace had and would direct some pretty good early talkies that didn't crawl along like this one at all, so I guess the cause of the mediocre result will always be a mystery.Recommended only to see Powell and Lombard together in the film that started their relationship and ultimately brought about their marriage.

The film isn't the greatest but not the worst film ever made. Okay, it's about Paris in the 1930s where American expatriates like William Powell's character go to make money, live cheaply, and escape the horrors of the Great Depression in the United States. William Powell is a great actor and perhaps one of the finest of his time. He does what he can with this weak script where he plays a publisher in Paris. He falls in love with the niece of a wealthy American played by the wonderful Carole Lombard. Wynne Gibson has a supporting role as the other woman in William Trevor (Powell's character) life who knows his secrets. I liked Wynne Gibson in another film and she was a great actress here as well. The actors do the best with the weak script but it was Paramount and other studios who produced and made films a lot more than they do today. Studio film actors and actresses had contracts to make a certain amount per year. Yes, not all of them were brilliant. Some of them like this film is one of mediocre types of it's time.

The oldest and least entry in the Lombard Collection is this would-be sophisticated melodrama, about ex-journalist con-man William Powell who appears to look out for wealthy Americans vacationing in Paris being blackmailed after having been caught in compromising situations – when he’s really the one behind the whole scheme (with a couple of associates in tow).Lombard (who subsequently married her co-star) plays the young niece of one such victim (Guy Kibbee); this is the earliest of her films that I’ve watched and, frankly, if it weren’t for her voice she’d be unrecognizable from her later zanier output. Here, she’s given a very plain look indistinguishable from many an early 1930s leading lady; in fact, it was only with her performance as a temperamental theatrical star to John Barrymore’s madcap impresario in Howard Hawks’ magnificent screwball comedy TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934) that she acquired her distinctive – and captivating – personality.Anyway, the film makes for a mildly interesting artifact due to its unusual plot and setting (though obviously shot on the Paramount back-lot); Powell’s is actually a thoughtful characterization – but Lombard is merely decorous (needless to say, I’ve always preferred her in comedy roles as opposed to drama). Also in the cast is Wynne Gibson as The (vindictive and somewhat pathetic) Other Woman, a role that would practically be replicated wholesale in NIGHT AFTER NIGHT (1932) which, coincidentally, is included on Universal’s “Mae West Glamour Collection” set! All in all, however, director Wallace fared much better in his more sympathetic depiction of another band of crooks years later in the winsome comedy THE YOUNG IN HEART (1938).