ThiefHott Too much of everything

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

mark.waltz And that's to the type of man any 30's shop-girl would want. The girl is Claudette Colbert and the boy is Ray Milland, a British Lord who is incognito as a tourist. In a Pat O'Brien type role, Fred MacMurray is the guy Colbert obviously loves as evidenced by their recurring scenes right outside the main library in New York on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. In fact, the stone seats they take over are still there today! Colbert gets a bit of notoriety because she publicly rejects him when she finds out who he really is, and ends up singing at a fancy nightclub even though she really has no talent as a singer. The scene where she fumbles the song but brings her audience to laughter by ad-libbing is very funny. However, the dress she wears (with a huge feather in her nose) is tacky.It's obvious whom she'll end up choosing, but it's how she makes the choice that will keep audience's interest and the trouble she gets into as she makes up her mind. This isn't one of the better 30's screwball comedies as it's not a great script, and the story has been done better. There are, however, some great scenes of 30's New York on the subway and in Coney Island that are of interest today. Colbert and MacMurray do share a good chemistry, which is why they appeared in more than half a dozen similar films over a 15 year period.

mukava991 THE GILDED LILY packs a lot of good-natured fun into a standard Paramount assembly line product. Claudette Colbert, perhaps never more perfectly photographed and framed, plays an office worker torn between two handsome young suitors: a brash newspaper reporter (Fred MacMurray) and a cultivated Englishman (Ray Milland, who, unbeknownst to Colbert, is actually a duke traveling in the States under an assumed name to avoid the press). The plot picks up when Colbert discovers Milland's true identity (via MacMurray who by chance is assigned to do a story on him), whereupon emotions take over, spin out of control and create a whole new world of developments, including Colbert's overnight rise to celebrity-by- association, which relocates her from workaday surroundings to nightclub dressing rooms and luxury hotels, from simple lace collars to glittery evening gowns. There is no logical explanation for how she could become so closely involved with Milland, yet know nothing about him other than the fact that he is English and has no job. But we must suspend disbelief so that the plot can develop.The first half is the best, beginning charmingly as Colbert and MacMurray's friendly- flirtatious relationship is established on a bench outside the main branch of the New York Public Library where they meet each Thursday to eat popcorn, chat and watch the world go by. Their dialogue provides all the exposition we will need: he is in love with her, plain and simple; she isn't in love with him, because her vision of love is based on an ideal fantasy which no reality has ever matched. From this introduction we are taken on a lively ride as she is soon swept off her feet by Milland in the surging chaos of a packed subway station. Following is a series of beautifully written scenes, expertly played by Colbert, charting the giddiness of falling madly in love through the descent into despair when that love suddenly appears to be a cruel illusion. The peak occurs when Colbert exquisitely botches a nightclub song-and-dance act intended to launch her as a marketable celebrity. Thereafter the story sags and gets mechanical, contracting into the old "which suitor shall I choose" routine, but momentum resumes toward the end. Even at its lowest points, however, just the beauty of the three main faces in close up is enough to hold interest. It is impossible to judge which of Colbert's many light comedy performances is the finest, but this one would have to be in the top five. MacMurray and Milland are perfectly cast as the opposite love interests. They resemble each other in build, height and hair color, so that even accounting for Milland's accent and slightly more reserved demeanor we can see why it's so difficult for Colbert to choose between them. The resemblance is most pronounced when the men appear together in formal attire.

kidboots Sassy and feminine is how I would describe Claudette Colbert. Fred MacMurray and Claudette were teamed in 7 films - almost all of them frothy comedies. Although they were an unlikely duo something about them clicked with the public who found them a perfect match. This was their first pairing - she was a veteran of nearly 30 films and a big star, he was a gangly newcomer, who had had the juvenile lead in a minor film "Grand Old Girl" starring May Robson, but they displayed great chemistry together. "The Gilded Lily" poked fun at the craze for celebrities (has anything changed!!)Claudette plays Marilyn David, a stenographer (Colbert had once been one in her pre-acting days). She and Peter Dawes (Fred MacMurray), a celebrity reporter have a regular Thursday night date where they shoot the breeze in the local park, debating the merits of peanuts verses popcorn. She wants to marry (just not to him), settle down and cook and clean for her man. He feels that if anyone had a chance at fame or celebrity they would grab it.Marilyn meets Charles Gray (Ray Milland) in a subway scuffle. It is love at first sight and they spend a fun day at Luna Park. She is very concerned that he doesn't have a job and makes him promise to find one but unbeknownst to her he is really a Lord !!! and also engaged to an English girl. Charles' father (C. Aubrey Smith) tells him he must go back to England and break his engagement if he wants to make it alright with Marilyn, who Charles tells that he is leaving town for a few weeks in search of work. Peter is given an assignment to get some pictures of Lord Gray and when Marilyn sees his picture in the paper she feels betrayed - she didn't know he was a Lord!!!!Peter concocts a story about her broken romance - how she was jilted but still believes in love. Of course Marilyn has no knowledge of the story but she still becomes a celebrity, known as the "No Girl"!!! She is hired to do an act in a run down nightclub. It is the funniest sequence - she is a sensation!!! She goes on, forgets the words to her song, does an impromptu dance, falls over - "I'm a freak!!!" and the crowd goes wild!!!It is a great satire on what it is like to be a celebrity. Even though Pete started it, he realises that he has created a monster. She has so many obligations they never get a chance to see each other. Gray comes back on the scene but only to bask in her notoriety. This is a super film that is highly recommended.

bkoganbing Claudette Colbert was given two of Paramount's up and coming leading men in The Gilded Lily which holds up very well today because it talks about the cult of celebrity. Ray Milland and Fred MacMurray co-starred with her and in MacMurray's fifth film he became a star.Fred's a reporter and Claudette's a secretary and they have a regular Thursday date on a bench near the main public library in Bryant Park in New York. They talk about the state of the human condition while munching on popcorn. But one fine day Claudette runs into Ray Milland who is traveling incognito in the USA, he's a titled English Earl whose got a playboy reputation and a fiancé back across the pond.MacMurray as it were happens to spot Milland and his father C. Aubrey Smith as they're boarding the boat back for the United Kingdom. His reporter instinct takes over and he breaks the story of Milland and Colbert and overnight he creates a celebrity, 'the No Girl.'What to do, but try and exploit this all around and Claudette working class secretary one day becomes a celebrity like Zsa Zsa Gabor, Pia Zadora, or Jessica Hahn. The cult of celebrity was just beginning back in the day and The Gilded Lily is one of the first films to deal with that phenomenon.Though MacMurray got his big break in this film after four other films which he didn't make much of an impact, the film really does belong to Claudette Colbert. She's got some great comic moments here, getting drunk and passing out under a nightclub table while MacMurray and owner Luis Alberni are discussing putting her in his club.Of course Claudette doesn't sing or dance or do card tricks, so what will she do once she gets there. Another great moment is Claudette taking singing lessons from an exasperated Leonid Kinskey. This might have been the inspiration for the scene where Fortunio Bonanova tries to resign from giving singing lessons to Dorothy Comingore in Citizen Kane. Of course this one is played strictly for laughs as poor Colbert tries to croak out a song.Claudette Colbert doesn't sing or dance or do card tricks, but give her her due as one of the best screen comediennes films had back in the Thirties. She's at her very best in The Gilded Lily and what the film says about celebrities and what it takes to be one is probably more true today than back in 1935. Don't miss this one if broadcast