This film plays almost like a fairy tale with illiterate scullery maid Franciska Gaal, in her third and last starring role, getting involved with playboy Franchot Tone, who pretends to be a chauffeur just to get into her house and woo her boss' daughter, Rita Johnson. I enjoyed some of the comedy, with the best sequence being the taxicab Gaal buys Tone thinking he lost his job. Billy Gilbert sells her a dilapidated car that looked like it came out of a Laurel and Hardy Film - it falls apart as they drive! And it's so slow a kid on a bike grabs hold of it, not to have it pull him along, but to help pull it along. A very funny sequence. The pacing of the film is just right, but many of the comics in the supporting cast (Reginald Gardiner, Franklin Pangborn and Robert Coote) were wasted. However, Walter Connolly does his exasperated father routine perfectly. Gaal has a down-to-earth naive quality which endeared her to me, so I enjoyed the film. I wondered why she just quit making films altogether after this film.
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bkoganbing3 April 2020The Girl Downstairs is yet another film where MGM gave Franchot Tone another opportunity to wear a tuxedo. Tone was well typecast as a debonair playboy by this time. His leading lady was Franciska Gaal borrowed from Paramount when Luise Rainer refused to play the part.
Said part was that of a poor peasant girl from the Hungarian countryside come Budapest to work in Walter Connolly's house to earn enough money to buy a replacement cow for the family farm.
Connolly doesn't think wastrel Tone is fit for his daughter Rita Johnson. But as a ruse Tone pretends he's courting Gaal. And Gaal thinks he's a storybook prince.
This kind of romantic frou-frou was popular in Europe and in some cases well in America. Gaal in her three American films always played the innocent as she does here. Tone had the playboy parts that MGM kept casting him in down in his sleep.
Highlight of the film for me is garage owner Billy Gilbert palming off a wreck of an old taxicab on Gaal. She throws her cow money away on it so that Tone whom she thinks is a chauffeur can work on his own. It's funny yet wistfully sad.
Good if old fashioned movie. -
morrison-dylan-fan26 June 2021With Father's Day coming up I began searching for a film I could watch with my dad on the day. Having tried to find the title in 2020,I was pleased to recently stumble on a DVD of the movie, leading to me finally going downstairs to meet the girl.
View on the film:
Returning to the role she had earlier played in Catherine the Last (1936), Franciska Gaal gives a radiant performance as Linz,thanks to Gaal wearing a sparkling, snappy comedic line-delivery with a Melodramatic elegance bubbling to the top,as maid Linz falls for dashing Wagner.
Looking rather dapper in his suit, Franchot Tone gives a very good turn as Wagner,who Tone has lay his ladies charm on thick with Linz, who under a playful comedic note Tone has Wagner play his affections for another,right under Linz's nose.
The last of four films he made in 1938, director Norman Taurog & cinematographer Clyde De Vinna closely work with editor Elmo Veron to bring out a Cinderella atmosphere, via glossy screen-wipes between poor Linz working downstairs, and the lined with riches household and night clubs that Wagner lives in,until he spell of love is cast,and in swift panning shots Linz joins in the ball.
Toning down how far the relationship got in the 1936 original Austria film, (which was also produced by Universal) the second screenplay by Young and Innocent (1937-also reviewed) co-writer Gerald Savory (here joined by Harold Goldman,Jack Mintz and Felix Jackson) keeps on the breezy side of the Hays Code with lite Screwball Comedy dialogue between Linz and Wagner,which bounces to silky Melodrama as romantic feelings develop from the girl downstairs. -
duganek16 May 2013Franciska Gaal came to stardom in Europe for her portrayal of Katharina in a much darker though no less romantic German film called Katharina Die Letzte -- Catherine the Last (a pun on Catherine the First, Empress of all the Russias). In the German version, Gaal as the schlub of a scullery wench is much dirtier, more clumsy, and totally believable as an overlooked bumpkin skivvy. Her metamorphosis through loving the blackguard cad is, therefore, more amazing and heartrending. Dear Franchot Tone is hardly believable as a immoral seducer, out to marry an heiress only for her money and willing to betray the innocent country girl to obtain his black ends. His German counterpart oozes villainy and smarminess, forced by Katherina's utter belief in his goodness to mend his ways until the ultimate scene. All the same jokes are there in the Hollywood version, scene for scene, but the morphing of the villain into a hero in the German version is what makes that film an exalting and memorable experience, traveling from dark cynicism to -- yes -- a happy Hollywood ending!
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rhoda-925 January 2018A pleasant enough ironing movie, this is quite annoying the more you concentrate on it. The plot is as flimsy as it is ridiculous, seeming more appropriate to a second-rate operetta, with lots of grimacing and winking. Why would Franchot Tone (looking quite dishy in chauffeur's uniform) need to court a scullery maid in order to see his girlfriend, the daughter of the house, whose father disapproves of him? This enormous mansion certainly has a telephone. And there is nothing to stop the daughter from going to Tone's house or to bars and cafes he frequents. Then there is the rather unpleasant moral aspect--his pretense of courtship is very caddish behaviour. The social aspect (a sophisticated playboy in love with a girl who cannot read and has never made a phone call?) is as absurd as the maid's appearance--folk-dance costumes and pigtails that turn up the end (how? why?) like a clodhopper in a cartoon (but lots of fashionable makeup). The plot is so simple that, when it has clearly come to an end, it has to be extended by a pointless and unfunny chase sequence to eke out the movie. It is also very pleasant to see Walter Connolly, the funniest exasperated man in pictures. But it is frustrating to see Reginald Gardner, Robert Coote, and Franklin Pangborn in roles that are too brief and ill written to exploit their talent.
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planktonrules8 May 2019When the story begins, Paul Wagner (Franchot Tone) is trying to woo a rich young lady. However, in the process he manages to completely alienate her father and he is so infuriated with Paul that he instructs all his household staff to keep him off the property...all but the lowly scullery maid, Katerina (Franciska Gaal). So, Paul pretends he's a chauffeur and begins romancing Katerina in order to also be able to sneak into his girlfriend's house late at night. In other words, Paul acts like a jerk and antagonizes a lady's father. To get around this, he uses a maid and strings her along. Wow...what a piece of work!! In fact, this is a big problem with the story...Paul is just too unlikable and it's hard to watch a romance where you dislike one of the leads.
An additional problem with the story is Gaal's character. While she's in her mid 30s, here she is dressed and acts like a teenage and simple-minded version of Heidi...and it comes off as a bit weird.
So is this worth seeing? Not especially. It's not so much terrible...more fatally flawed from the outset. -
atlasmb13 May 2013A case of mistaken identity (impersonation) drives this fluffy piece of frippery. The Girl Downstairs did not make much of an impression on me until Franciska Gaal, as Katerina, came on screen. I found her to be charming.
This comedy does not delve very deeply into darker feelings or emotions (distrust, self-doubt, fear, disappointment, sadness), though they have a place in the story. Instead, the character of Katerina provides a disarmingly optimistic view of life that overrides all negativity.
I found the supporting cast to be more than adequate. Especially Franklin Pangborn, whose character adds a level of levity that is not overdone.
I recommend this film not despite its simplicity, but because of its simplicity, which allows the performance of Ms. Gaal to shine through. -
ksf-217 May 2020A love-triangle farce, with Franchot Tone. and any film that has Walter Connolly, Franklin Pangborn, Billy Gilbert, and Reginald Gardiner must be pretty good. Paul (Tone) falls for Rosalind, the rich man's daughter, but is banned from the house. He decides to ask out Katerina, the maid, just to get into the house. (Franciska Gaal, from Budapest. she had emigrated to the US in the 1930s.) so the maid goes all in, and thinks it's a whirlwind romance, but Paul is still really in love with Rosalind. he gets in deeper and deeper with Katerina, but doesn't have the guts to break her heart. we know it's all going to blow up at some point. what's the best way out of all this? Directed by Norman Taurog, who had won for Skippy in 1931. Taurog had directed Jackie Cooper and of course, Elvis! Girl Downstairs is pretty good. Too bad they didn't use Pangborn and Billy Gilbert more.. they were masters. it's a fun caper.
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countrygrljesus14 September 2021I loved this movie because it was about two people in love - nothing else mattered! They were equal even though she was a maid and he was a "gentleman" I wish the world loved like this ❤