With Pleasure, Madame: A Weirdly Charming 1936 Time Capsule

Is this movie worth your time today? Honestly, only if you have a serious soft spot for vintage fluff or you've already seen everything else from the 1930s. 🥂

If you like movies where everyone is wearing a tuxedo and lying about their social status, you’ll probably have a good time. If you want something with actual stakes or a plot that makes sense, you might hate this.

The whole thing is set in Cannes during the "fashionable season." It feels like a postcard that’s been sitting in a drawer for eighty years. 🌊

Marta Labarr plays Anita Stella, this world-famous singer. She’s got that very specific 1930s singing style where every note feels like it’s vibrating through her nose. It’s charming for about ten minutes, then it starts to feel a bit much.

Then you have Conrad Nagel playing John Egan. He’s a British diplomat who decides to go incognito as "Baron Dupont." Because apparently, in 1936, that’s just what you did when you liked a girl.

He doesn't even try that hard to hide his identity. He just puts on a slightly different face and hopes for the best. 🎭

The movie is basically a series of excuses for people to stand in beautiful rooms and talk about feelings they don't actually have. It reminds me a bit of the lightheartedness in Kazdemu wolno kochac, but with more British stiffness.

The Vibes are the Best Part

I found myself looking at the background more than the actors. The sets for the Riviera are obviously stage-bound, but they have this dreamy, fake quality that I really love. It’s not real life, it’s "movie life."

There’s this one scene at the Charity Ball where the extras are dancing in the background. If you look closely at the couple on the far left, they look like they’ve never danced before in their lives. They’re just sort of shuffling and looking at the floor.

It’s these little things that make me realize how much work went into making these low-budget musicals. They were just churning them out back then. 🎞️

The writing is credited to a bunch of people, including Alfred Grünwald. You can tell too many people worked on it. The dialogue is snappy in some parts but then it just drags during the romantic speeches.

• The Good: The costumes are incredible. Everyone looks like they spent three hours getting dressed.
• The Weird: The way Nagel looks at Labarr. It’s less "I love you" and more "I think I left the stove on at the embassy."
• The Boring: The middle twenty minutes where almost nothing happens except people walking in and out of doors.

I kept thinking about how different this is from something like The Mask of Fu Manchu. That movie is all about weird energy and madness, while this is so... polite. It’s so aggressively polite that it almost becomes funny.

There is a scene where a character named Tony De Lungo (I think?) does a bit of physical comedy that feels like it belongs in a completely different movie. It’s high energy and then the movie immediately goes back to being a slow romance. It’s very bursty in its pacing.

I also noticed the sound quality is a bit hit-or-miss. Sometimes the music is way louder than the talking. I had to keep adjusting my speakers. 🔊

If you’re a fan of old-school child actors, you won't find any here, unlike in Little Lord Fauntleroy. This is strictly a playground for adults who act like children.

The whole "incognito Baron" thing is so overdone, but Nagel plays it with such a straight face that you almost believe he’s pulling it off. He has this way of holding his cigarette that makes him look very diplomatic, I guess?

"Why tell the truth when a lie sounds so much more melodic?"

That’s not an actual quote from the movie, but it should be. It’s the philosophy of the whole plot. Everyone is just performing for everyone else.

I wouldn't call this a masterpiece. It’s not even the best musical of 1936. But it has a specific kind of clunky charm that you don't see anymore.

The ending happens so fast it’ll give you whiplash. One minute they’re arguing, the next they’re practically married. I love how movies back then just decided they were finished and stopped. 🎬

If you’re bored on a Sunday and want to see what people thought was "fashionable" eighty years ago, give it a go. Just don't expect it to change your life or anything. It’s just a pleasant little trip to a Cannes that never really existed.