Paris Underground

Plot

Constance Bennett both produced and starred in the espionager Paris Underground. Bennett and Gracie Fields play, respectively, an American and an English citizen trapped in Paris when the Nazis invade. The women team up to help Allied aviators escape from the occupied city into Free French territory. The screenplay was based on the true wartime activities of Etta Shiber, who engineered the escape of nearly 300 Allied pilots. British fans of comedienne Gracie Fields were put off by the scenes in which she is tortured by the Gestapo, while Constance Bennett's following had been rapidly dwindling since the 1930s; as a result, the heartfelt but tiresome Paris Underground failed to make a dent at the box-office. It would be Constance Bennett's last starring film--and Gracie Fields' last film, period. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Review

Paris Underground is a moderately entertaining World War II resistance film, provided that one is willing to suspend one's disbelief to a substantial degree. For example, Underground would ask one to believe that the likes of Constance Bennett and Gracie Fields, appealing and likable though they may be, would be able to set up an entire underground network and smuggle out more than 250 people -- sometimes by merely disguising a dozen or so downed English flyers as participants in a funeral and waltzing them right past the noses of the not-very-bright Nazi occupiers. Underground's screenplay is riddled with holes in its logic, and its entire approach is shamefully "lightweight" in terms of the genuine menace that existed in occupied France, but it does provide a couple of neatly suspenseful sequences that work well and its players do well by it. Bennett is a bit mannered, as could be her wont, but she knows how to punch a scene and how to carry a picture. Fields is her delightful self, and Kurt Kreuger plays the German officer with the expected villainy. Gregory Ratoff's direction is unfussy but effective, and Lee Garmes' cinematography is a joy -- far and away the best thing in the film. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi

Cast

• Gracie Fields - Emmyline Quayle
• Kurt Kreuger - Capt. Kurt von Weber
• Eily Malyon - Mme. Bangler
• Charles Andre - Father Dominique

Leslie Vincent - Lt. William Gray; Richard Ryen - Monsieur Renard; Harry Hays Morgan Jr.; Roland Varno - Lt. Cmdr. Stowe; André Charlot; Adrienne D'Ambricourt - Margot; Gregory Gaye - Tissier; Georges Rigaud - Andre de Mornay; Constance Bennett - Kitty de Mornay; Nina Borget; Maurice Cass; Marcel dela Brosse; Philip Dorn; Frederick Giermann; Andrew V. McLaglen - Sgt. McNair; Art Miles; Otto Reichow; Georgette Rhodes; Dick Ryan - M. Renard; Vladimir Sokoloff - Undertaker; Anthony Warde; Loulette Sablon; Ray DeRavenne; Peter Kooy

Credit

Victor Greene - Art Director, Travis Banton - Costume Designer, Gregory Ratoff - Director, James Newcom - Editor, Alexander Tansman - Composer (Music Score), Alexander Tansman - Musical Direction/Supervision, Nicolai Remisoff - Production Designer, Lee Garmes - Cinematographer, Constance Bennett - Producer, Sydney Moore - Set Designer, Boris Ingster - Screenwriter, Gertrude Purcell - Screenwriter, Mrs. Etta Shiber - Book Author, Anne Dupre - Short Story Author, Paul Dupre - Short Story Author, Oscar Bay - Short Story Author

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