TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

richard-1787 What works in this movie is the comedy of the four men - and, in her soapy dance number, of Lucile Ball. Both when they play swing and when they crack jokes, they're funny.What doesn't work, too often, is the star of the movie, Met coloratura soprano Lily Pons. I enjoy Pons' operatic recordings, and have most of them, but she doesn't work well in this movie. She had neither the personality nor - to be honest - the looks of Jeannette MacDonald or Grace Moore, and at this point she was still having real problems with the English language. A comedy with a lead who isn't good with the language is a real problem. Contrast her with Herman Bing, who misused English to comic effect, and you see the difference. She was no dancer, at least in this movie, either. Her one real talent, that for which she was famous at the Met, was her high notes.That causes problems in a movie made for a general audience. She is too often given music to show off her very high notes and her staccati. At the Met audiences appreciate that sort of thing, but it seems misplaced in what was meant to be a general audience movie. She should have been given more lyrical music, less fireworks. Think of Jeannette MacDonald singing "San Francisco" in the movie of the same name, which came out the year before, or Grace Moore singing "Ciriciribin" - much less "Minnie the Moocher".It's interesting to see how she performs "Una voce poco fa" in her Met Opera scene. If that's how she did the role on state, she was not much of an actress even by the operatic standards of her day.This movie could also have used a better director, to make the comedy scenes even better, or perhaps to have helped Pons do a better job.But the basic problem is that Pons was not movie material, at least not for this sort of general audience comedy. She doesn't sink the picture, but she doesn't add anything positive to it, either.Footnote: The year after making this picture, the male lead, Gene Raymond, would marry Jeannette MacDonald, another lyric coloratura who was much better suited to the movies, and much better presented there.

blanche-2 I wish I had a time machine and could go back to the old Met and hear some of these singers like Galli-Curci and Lily Pons, who had voices the size of gnats. Nowadays a straight coloratura would never be given Violetta to sing. I'm not even sure one would sing Lucia. They still sing Gilda, and by Act II, it looks like a silent movie. as no one can hear them.Anyway, Lily Pons was a huge international breakout opera star who made three films for RKO in the '30s. She also did advertisements and gave concerts. Here, she plays a singer, Nikki Martin, a Parisian without a passport who takes off on her wedding day and winds up meeting musician Windy McLean (Gene Raymond) who plays with a band, the 'McLean Wildcats.' Nikki falls for him and stows away on the ship that takes him and his band back to America. Authorities find her, lock her up, and fire the band, which was supposed to play on the ship. Nikki escapes once the ship reaches New York and turns up at the Wildcats' apartment.Windy's girlfriend, Clair (Lucille Ball) arrives and has a job for them at a roadhouse, which gets them out of town and away from the authorities, who want to bring them to justice for hiding Nikki. When Clair is injured, Nikki becomes very popular as the band's singer. Clair reports them, and soon, they're on the run again.The band players (Jack Oakie, Hermann Bing, and Mischa Auer) are funny and lively. The film contains lots of music of all kinds. At the end, Pons sings one of her signature roles, Rosina in "The Barber of Seville." Today that role is sung by a mezzo-soprano.Pons had excellent coloratura technique (but no trill) and, like most female singers of that era, backed off the high notes. It has to do with their training and the type of sound that was considered acceptable. She had a high F and was known for Lakme, an opera which isn't done much anymore.This is an entertaining film that gives one a chance to see one a really big opera star of the day, during a time when opera was much more a part of the culture. Pons sang into her seventies and, even when I was a child, was still very well known.

timothymcclenaghan Don't be put off by other negative critiques. Forget that Lily Pons was a highly regarded opera singer, or that somehow she condescended to appear in a movie. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Pons was offered a great deal of money by RKO to make the three movies she made.She gives a fine performance both acting and singing. The plot is typical 1930s fare, and I thought it amusing and better than average. I find Pons's characterization very charming.As for Pons being tall and willowy, the lady was a petite 5 feet tall (see IMDb bio), but she sure had a superior voice in that little body. The "pop" tunes she was given to sing in this film were written with an operatic voice in mind, requiring a large range to sing.No other mention has been given to Lucille Ball's very, very funny comedic dance. Her character is sabotaged with a pair of soaped-up dancing shoes, causing her to slip and fall every time she tries to dance. I've watched this over and over and I laugh out loud every time I see it. It takes a very good, well-trained dancer to be able to fall down as much and as well as she did.

Kalaman This is really a wonderful surprise, a charmingly contrived, irresistibly tune-filled operetta, made for RKO in 1936, directed by Leigh Jason. It was intended as a vehicle for its star, Lily Pons, playing the role of a Parisian opera star Nikki Martin that flees her wedding and becomes a stowaway hiding in a ship compartment occupied by an American Jazz band. Nikki meets and falls in love with the band leader Windy McLean (Gene Raymond) and she travels with his band from France to America.Ms. Pons was a superior opera star of its time and "That Girl From Paris" is all hers, though other players, Jackie Oakie, Gene Raymond, Lucille Ball, Mischa Auer, Hermann Bing are all exceptionally good as well. Tall, willowy, coolly complacent (some would say stand-offish), Ms. Pons was no beauty like Jeanette MacDonald or Grace Moore, but she is endowed with an overpoweringly deep, searing opera voice that would put both Jeanette & Grace to shame. As much as the studio is promoting its opera star, RKO is also including as much classical & jazz music as possible and for this, it succeeds.Much of the movie's charm & vivacity seems to run out of gas in the last fifteen minutes or so as the filmmakers try to endow the contrived scenario with a happy, forced ending, but everything before it was a sheer delight.