Paris in Spring

Plot

Afraid of marriage, Simone (Mary Ellis) breaks off her long term engagement with her fiancé Paul de Lille (Tullio Carminati). Paul heads to the top of The Eiffel Tower with thoughts of suicide. In another part of Paris and also afraid of marriage, Mignon (Ida Lupino) breaks it off from her young lover (James Blakely). Despairing, Mignon also climbs to the top of the The Eiffel Tower intending to leap to her death. There she meets Paul and the two compare stories. After discussion, Paul dissuades her from leaping and the two conspire to make their respective partners jealous by pretending to have an affair with each other.

Partial cast

Soundtrack

Reception

The New York Times noted that while Mary Ellis offered a degree of entertainment with her singing, Tullio Carminati did not help the film by treating the film in a burlesque style. The Times further offered that while Ida Lupino and James Blakeley were moderately good in their roles, any merited praise for acting is to the credit of Lynne Overman, Jessie Ralph, and to the actor in the lesser role of the Chez Simone manager.

Reviewer Graham Greene praised Milestone's emmulation of Ernst Lubitsch in his ability to create a film that was a "silly, charming tale", and make something "light, enchanting, and genuinely fantastic" out of a nonsense plot device. Lupino's role in Paris in Spring has been described as "dull", something which she agreed with.

Release

The film was first released in US theaters on 28 May 1935, and was released in Denmark in October that year and in Finland in November. The film was sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution.