User:Ninastuder/Cafe Metropole

Plot

Café Metropole is set in Paris, 1937. Here, Victor Lobard (Adolphe Menjou) owns the very exclusive Café Metropole. One night, he has to get drunken American Alexander Brown (Tyrone Power) to leave after closing time. Then he is visited by a distraught Maxl Schinner (Christian Rub). Maxl loaned him 900,000 Francs (which he embezzled), and Victor has not repaid anything. Victor asks for another 60,000 Francs and promises to repay everything at 6 o'clock the next evening. Maxl gives him the money.

Victor risks the 60,000 francs at baccarat and wins 420,000 more. Alexander wagers the full amount against him, but loses. Victor seemingly has the money he needs, but then Brown confesses he is penniless. Victor makes a deal with Alexander in which he has to pose as a Russian nobleman, Prince Alexis Paneiev, and win over Heiress Laura Ridgeway (Loretta Young), the daughter of an old friend of Victor's, so that Victor can get his hands on the girl's money.

"Alexis" shows up early at the café and goes to the Metropole's florist's shop for a boutonnière. There he is mistaken by Laura for an employee; "Alexis" is enchanted, without knowing who she is. When Laura joins her father at their table, she asks Victor to steer some celebrities or royalty her way. Then, "Alexis" makes his entrance and is greeted by Victor as "your highness", much to Laura's embarrassment. Victor manages it so that "Alexis" dances with Laura. They get along wonderfully. However, there is a complication. "Alexis" is called away by a waiter to answer a telephone call. There is no call: the waiter turns out to be the real Alexis Paneiev (Gregory Ratoff)! Victor manages to soothe his outraged honor and obtain his silence for 50,000 Francs.

Alexander is in love with Laura, but he cannot bare to lie to her any longer. He tries and fails to discourage her love for him without revealing the sordid details. He tells Victor that he will tell her the truth, but when she telephones and asks him to marry her, he at last says yes. Victor has his lawyer, Monnet (Ferdinand Gottschalk), present Alexander with a contract asking for money from Laura's father, Joseph Ridgeway (Charles Winninger): half a million dollars before the wedding, and the same amount after, as well as various sums for any children. This so disgusts Alexander that he tells Victor that he is through with the scheme. Victor, after trying to bluff him into submission, pretends to give up and gives him back his passport and his bad check. Then Victor tells Ridgeway that "Alexis" is a fraud. He cons Ridgeway into believing he bought "Alexis" off; Ridgeway writes him a check for a million francs to help with the costs.

Ridgeway tells Laura the news, but she surprises him by saying she knew all along. However, when he states that he bought "Alexis" off, Laura does not believe him. She is certain that "Alexis" is in trouble and insists on finding out what is going on.

Ridgeway asks the Sûreté to arrest "Alexis". Instead, they jail the genuine prince. When Laura goes to the jail to see her "Alexis", she is surprised to find an older man, the real prince Alexis, who reveals that Victor is involved somehow. As Laura is leaving, she finds "Alexis", or rather Alexander, being charged with fraud. Joseph Ridgeway too was arrested on the false the claim that he was impersonating Joseph Ridgeway (himself). At this point, Victor was the only one who made it out clean. All of the characters came together to realize that they had all really been played by Victor. They all fixed their way out of jail and went back to Café Metropole to take back what was theirs. Alexander and Laura got back the check that Alexander wrote so he was no longer in danger of going to jail, Joseph Ridgeway wanted his 1 million Francs back but settled for a huge plates of wild strawberries, and the real Prince Alexis made his power known to Victor and ordered in Russian for the whole table. Everything had been solved, and the happy couple was together in the end.

Loretta Young Portrait

Tyrone Power

Reception

With Café Metropole not being the first movie in which Loretta Young and Tyrone Power were costars together, the film received an overall decent feedback. The movie was neither entirely praised nor disliked.

Frank S. Nugent from the The New York Times had an indifferent opinion on the film. In regards to the leads he wrote, "The Tyrone Power-Loretta Young team, formed in 'Love Is News,' and scheduled for still greater things, fulfills its lightly romantic duties pleasantly." Beyond this, Nugent gave his opinion on what he thought worked well writing, "its plot has a warmed-over look about it... Yet, it comes pleasantly seasoned with comedy and it has been served with a modest flourish or two." He goes on to acknowledge the entertainment that each character brought to the film. As well, Nugent included some critiques such as, "Mr. Ratoff [Gregory Ratoff], its author, and Jacques Deval (of "Tovarich"[Tovaritch (film)]), its screen adapter, might have displayed a wee bit more originality in resolving a promising theme... The Rivoli [a movie theatre] has given us much worse, and much better."

Film Critic, Mae Tinée, from the Chicago Tribune wrote a much higher praise for Café Metropole saying, "Direction was excellent and the film is beautifully put on. Not a dull moment in 'Café Metropole'- you have my word for it."

Overall the film has a midway rating of 6.6/10 on IMDb and has a variety of mixed reviews from critics at the time of its release.