Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938)

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett
1938/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Nicole de Loiselle: Here’s to our agreement. No lovemaking. No quarrels.
Michael Brandon: Just like an ordinary married couple.
Nicole de Loiselle: I said no quarrels.

 

What do you get when you mix a screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett with direction by Ernst Lubitsch and two utterly charming leads? Comedy gold.

Michael Brandon (Gary Cooper) is a stern, eccentric multi-millionaire. Nicole de Loiselle (Claudette Colbert) is the daughter of a penniless marquis (Edward Everett Horton). The two meet cute at a department store where Michael is attempting to buy a pajama top for half the price of a set of pajamas. Nicole is game to buy the bottoms. It is love (or something) at first sight for Michael, he relentlessly pursues her, and they fall in love.

On their wedding day, Nicole discovers he has been married seven times before. He claims it is all right because he gives his discarded wives $50,000 a year after the divorce. Nicole is dismayed but for the sake of her father negotiates $100,000 a year. Michael happily agrees. But Nicole has no intention of ever collecting and takes him for a ride while she tames him. With David Niven as Michael’s secretary and Nicole’s erstwhile suitor.

I enjoyed this. It is possibly the last of Lubitsch’s American films that I had left to see. Wilder’s script is a scream and the leads are adorable. Cooper is so good at this kind of deadpan comic character and Colbert, as usual, is warm, natural, mischievous, and sexy. Horton is also a highlight. Recommended.