Guy Holden (Fred Astaire) is a professional dancer traveling through Europe with his lawyer friend, Egbert Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton). After a rough night in Paris, the two arrive in London, where Guy meets the girl of his dreams, Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers), who is stuck to a suitcase after her dotty aunt Hortense (Alice Brady) accidentally locked part of her dress in it. Mimi asks Guy to fetch her aunt, but Guy insists on trying to free the dress himself, tearing it in the process. After this clumsy introduction Mimi has no desire to see Guy again, but this doesn’t deter Guy in the slightest. He combs the streets of London looking for Mimi, culminating in a car chase through the English countryside as she tries and fails to escape his advances.
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| "Would you mind moving your car, or don't you want it anymore?" |
But Mimi has more problems than an unwanted suitor—she’s married, unhappily. At this time, it’s extremely difficult for a woman to seek a divorce in England without her husband’s consent. Hortense, who has quite a bit of experience obtaining divorces herself, brings Mimi to see her ex-fiancé, none other than Guy’s friend Egbert. The best solution Egbert can offer is for Mimi, whom he knows only as Mrs. Glossop, to be caught with another man. He arranges for a “co-respondent,” or professional adulterer, to meet Mimi at a seaside hotel and spend the night in her room—innocently, of course, but it won’t look that way to the private detectives meant to catch him there in the morning. The plan seems foolproof, so naturally everything that can go wrong will.
In an effort to get his mind off of Mimi, Egbert invites Guy along to the shore. Once Guy spots Mimi there, he resumes his one-sided romance, nearly winning her over during my favorite dance number of the film, set to Cole Porter’s “Night And Day.” Things seem to be going Guy’s way until Mimi comes to the erroneous conclusion that he is the co-respondent. Disgusted by what she believes to be his profession, she invites him into her room only to give him “the most miserable night of his entire business career” while she waits for the detectives to come. Meanwhile, the real co-respondent, Rodolfo Tonetti (Erik Rhodes), bumbles around the hotel until Egbert runs into him and sends him upstairs with instructions to stay with Mimi in her room until morning. With that mistake sorted out, Mimi finally warms up to Guy. The couple devises a plan to sneak past Tonetti—who takes his job very seriously—and go out dancing.
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| "And no monkey business!" |
All that’s left is for Mimi’s adultery to be discovered, which shouldn’t be a problem now that she is in fact in love with another man. However, one last complication stands in the way of Guy and Mimi’s happiness: Egbert has forgotten the detectives, and instead arranged for Mr. Glossop (Cyril Austin) himself to interrupt Mimi and Tonetti. Despite seeing Mimi embrace first Tonetti and then Guy, her husband refuses to grant a divorce until his own adultery is revealed by the hotel waiter (Eric Blore), who recognizes him from a previous trip with his French “wife.” Mimi is finally free, but not for long, as she announces her intention to marry Guy as soon as the divorce is through.
Overall I found the movie enjoyable, but there are some aspects that don’t quite stand the test of time. The idea of a man doggedly pursuing a woman after she’s expressed her disinterest may have been romantic back then, but by the end of the film I found myself rooting for Mimi to get her divorce and get on with her life—alone. My favorite part of the movie was not the central romance, but the minor characters that surrounded it. Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, and Erik Rhodes were all character actors who appeared in other Rogers-Astaire films; the funniest moments in the film belonged to them and to Alice Brady. Also appearing in the film were Lillian Miles and Betty Grable, performing separate musical numbers.
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