Having struck gold with a really old actor a few years away from smoking related death playing a millionaire romancing Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, Billy Wilder repeats that here only with Gary Cooper instead of Humphrey Bogart. Cooper is filmed through gauze with careful lighting. Hepburn is fine. Maurice Chevalier offers some pep as a private investigator, Hepburn's father.
The film's Paris locations really needed colour and the story needed an extra twist. It's not much of a tale though the meet cute is fine: one of Chevalier's clients, John McGiver, wants to shoot Cooper, who is a lover of McGiver's wife. Hepburn goes to warn Cooper and winds up rooting him. A year later he returns to Paris and they start up again. She lies about having experience so he hires dad to investigate her. Dad reveals truth and asks Coop to leave. He's about to but feels sorry for her at the end end and takes her on the train.
And that's romantic because...? She's inexperienced and he's a lechy sleeze who is controlling and they're going to have a horrible life. And dad doesn't seem to happy at the end.
Maybe this works if you love Hepburn and Cooper. Hepburn is fine, just so naive it's uncomfortable. And Cooper I know in real life was a sophisticated lady killer but in this is just this decaying old lech who is going to hire a private investigator on Hepburn. At the end I kept saying "don't get on the train don't get on the train".
Some funny bits - Cooper is constantly accompanied by an orchestra and nice tunes but just yuck.
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