The Widow from Monte Carlo: A bit of old-fashioned fluff

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, you probably only want to watch The Widow from Monte Carlo if you have a soft spot for 1930s B-movies that don’t take themselves too seriously. If you’re looking for something with actual stakes or a tight script, you’re going to be annoyed. But if you want to see Dolores del Río looking impossibly elegant while everyone else runs around panicked, it’s a perfectly fine way to kill an hour.

The plot is a total mess. Blackmail, fake duchesses, people lurking in hallways—it’s all there, but none of it really matters. It reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in Strictly Modern, though maybe a little less focused.

Some odd observations

Warren William is doing that thing he does where he acts like he’s the smartest guy in every single room. It’s charming for about twenty minutes, then it just gets kind of repetitive. Louise Fazenda is clearly the one doing the heavy lifting here, even when the script gives her absolutely nothing to work with. She’s got this way of looking at the camera that makes you feel like she’s in on the joke, and the joke is that the movie is a bit of a disaster.

• Dolores del Río’s costumes are honestly the best part of the whole production.
• The pacing in the second act is… well, let's just say it gets lost.
• There’s a background actor in the garden scene who keeps looking at his watch. I bet he just wanted to go home.
• The dialogue is so clipped and fast that you stop trying to follow the actual blackmail scheme halfway through.

It’s not as sharp as some other comedies of the era. It lacks the punch of The First Year, which knew how to keep things moving. Here, scenes just sort of end whenever the director decided they’d had enough.

There’s this one moment where a character walks into a room, says two lines of exposition that don't make any sense, and then just walks back out. It’s glorious. It feels like the writers just gave up on the plot and decided to focus on the sets instead. 🎩

I wouldn't say this is a lost classic. It’s not even a particularly good movie by most standards. But it’s got that weird, dusty charm that only old studio pictures have. You know, the kind where you can almost see the wires holding up the scenery. It’s fine. Just fine.