Café Metropole
Cast & Crew
Edward H. Griffith
Loretta Young
Tyrone Power
Adolphe Menjou
Gregory Ratoff
Charles Winninger
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
When Alexander Brown, an intoxicated and apparently wealthy American, demands an order of roast eagle at the Café Metropole in Paris, the owner, Victor Lobard, pacifies him by saying that the eagle needs to be hung for twenty-four hours before cooking and thus will be ready the next evening. At a gambling house that night, after Victor has won back half of the 960,000 francs which he earlier embezzled from the café and then lost, Alexander loses a bet for the remainder and writes a phony check before he reveals that he cannot pay. Victor threatens to call the police unless Alexander agrees to impersonate the Russian prince Alexis Paneiev and make love to Laura Ridgeway, the visiting daughter of one of his wealthy customers, so that Victor can get money from Laura's father. Alexander reluctantly complies and as Alexis, occasionally forgets his Russian accent while he romances Laura. When the real Paneiev, now a waiter at the café, angrily denounces Alexander to Victor, who in Russia used to wait on the proud Paneiev, Victor bribes him for his silence. Alexander and Laura fall in love to the dismay of her suspicious father, but when Laura proposes and Alexander leaves after refusing to go along with Victor's scheme to bilk the Ridgeways, Victor tells Ridgeway that he discovered "Alexander's" scheme and paid him one million francs to go away. Ridgeway repays Victor and calls the police to arrest Alexander. Laura, who suspected all along that Alexander was putting on an act because he was in some kind of trouble, finds him at the police station and sends a wire to have her father, who has left Paris with his wife Maggie on a boat train, arrested for impersonating the real Ridgeway. After Maggie, who likes Alexander, goes along with Laura's ploy and convinces the police that her husband is really "Smarty Pants" Dugan, a confidence man, she and her husband are arrested, but back in Paris all the identities are straightened out. At the café, when Ridgeway orders Victor to give the million franc check to Laura and Alexander for a wedding present, Victor returns Alexander's phony check and to pacify Ridgeway, gives him wild strawberries, just arrived from Algeria, which Ridgeway has desired since his arrival in Paris.
Director
Edward H. Griffith
Cast
Loretta Young
Tyrone Power
Adolphe Menjou
Gregory Ratoff
Charles Winninger
Helen Westley
Christian Rub
Ferdinand Gottschalk
Georges Renavent
Leonid Kinskey
Hal K. Dawson
Paul Porcasi
Andre Cheron
Andre Beranger
Frederik Vogeding
Albert Conti
Jan Rubini Orchestra
Leonid Snegoff
Octavio Giraud
Armand Kaliz
Jules Raucourt
Albert Pollet
Gino Corrado
Eugene Borden
Louis Mercier
Rolfe Sedan
Albert Morin
Charles De Ravenne
Fred Cavens
Jean De Briac
Jean Perry
Jean Masset
Mario Dominici
George Herbert
Jacques Lory
Marcelle Corday
Louise Clark
Michael Visaroff
Crew
Joseph Aiken
Lucien Andriot
Duncan Cramer
Jacques Deval
William Forsyth
Roger Heman
Nunnally Johnson
Thomas Little
Irene Morra
Hans Peters
Gregory Ratoff
Royer
Louis Silvers
Darryl F. Zanuck
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
A scene featuring a solo tap dance performance by dancing legend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was cut from the final version of the film.
Notes
According to Hollywood Reporter, this film was announced in November 1935 as Loretta Young's first film after her return to the studio, but she appeared in a number of other Twentieth Century-Fox films before this went into production. Jean Hersholt was listed in news items for a leading role, and his name appears in the Hollywood Reporter production charts, but he was not in the final film. Although an Motion Picture Herald review of a preview screening in February 1937 lists Bill Robinson in the credits and Robinson is listed in Hollywood Reporter production charts, his name is crossed off the trade advertising billing sheet, which listed him on the title card after Charles Winninger. While he was not in the viewed print, he May have been in a cut dancing sequence.
