Dan Navarro's Movie Reviews

Corinne Griffith was—and is—one of the most beautiful faces ever to light up the silver screen. As a teen, she wowed the judges at a New Orleans beauty contest, then parlayed that victory into a movie contract.

Miss Griffith made over sixty (60) movies in her career, and The Garden of Eden (1928), directed by Lewis Milestone in the Ernst Lubitsch tradition, is one of her best. In this frothy romantic comedy, she showcases her vast repertoire of facial expressions—from sad to happy to outraged to ecstatic—with all the stops in between.

In the era between the two World Wars, when Hollywood was much fascinated with Continental sophistication, we find Miss Griffith as Toni Lebrun, a young woman who works in her aunt and uncle's pretzel shop in Vienna. But Toni doesn't want to push pretzels all her life. She wishes to launch an operatic career, so she leaves Vienna for the "big time"—Budapest—to offer her services as a singer at a showplace with the promising title Palais de Paris.

Now comes the first of several amusing contradictions in the film. The Palais de Paris turns out to be a nightclub, not an opera house; and when she reports to the manager (Maude George, playing a flamboyant lesbian entrepreneur), Toni is outraged when asked to show her legs. She gets the job anyway, but in the dressing room before her first show, she is fitted with a skimpy costume. We see her dressed in that garb and we can see that it shows off her shapely legs and her shoulders, but there's nothing immoral about it. Not for 1928, certainly. Yet she protests to the seamstress: "I won't wear this trashy outfit in public! It isn't decent!" And yet there are a dozen other showgirls in the dressing room, outfitted in similarly revealing costumes, cheerfully waiting to go on stage.

However irrationally, Toni throws a fit. She does go on stage—for a few minutes, then panics and runs off—and gets fired from the show, winding up sadly bereft, a lonely stranger on the streets of Budapest. But wait! The kindly old seamstress (Louise Dresser) comes to her aid by offering to take Toni with her on her two-week vacation to Monte Carlo, beginning immediately.

Once in Monte Carlo, the duo check into the ritzy Hotel Eden, where Rosa, the seamstress, reveals that she is actually a Hungarian baroness living on a pension. She checks Toni in as her "daughter," and because of a mutual warmth underlying their friendship, Rosa even takes steps to adopt the girl legally.

Apparently there was no red tape in 1928 Hungarian bureaucracy, at least not in Lubitsch-like sex comedies, for presto! Before the two weeks vacation is over, Toni is legally adopted—and now entitled to be addressed as "baroness."

Quickly, the Eden's comely new baroness is noticed by Richard Dupont (Charles Ray), a wealthy lothario who is staying in a room directly across the courtyard from Rosa and Toni. There are several scenes of awkward but funny moments while Richard and Toni get to know each other—including a bit where she bites him, and, later, he bites her! But eventually the lovebirds come to realize that—nibbles notwithstanding—they love each other, and they plan to marry.

At a gathering before the wedding, we see Toni dressed in a magnificent bridal gown, ready for her Big Moment. A group of well-to-do ladies hover around her. One asks about the string of pearls around Toni's neck, and we see the intertitle indicating Toni's reply: "A gift from Richard." Then another lady asks about her exquisite diamond ring. Toni replies again, "A gift from Richard." And the dress? "A gift from..."—well, you get the idea.

Then Corinne Griffith, as the beautiful Toni, takes a beat. And we read her punchline: "But I provided my underwear myself."

The line is hilarious, but it's also a lead-in to a new gag. As the wedding guests continue to arrive, one of them—an uncle of Richard's (Lowell Sherman)—turns out to be an old patron of the Palais de Paris, and he remembers Toni from her one night as a performer there. When she realizes this, Toni figures (incorrectly) that the jig is up, that unk will expose her "scandalous" past and put the kibosh on the wedding. So she tears the string of pearls from her neck, throws down her diamond ring, strips off her wedding dress... and now, she's down to what she "provided myself." That's right, her undies. And she marches out into the wedding chamber filled with guests, clad only in undergarments that display those lovely legs she was so loath to show in the first reel—yet another contradiction—and announces that not only are her clothes off, the wedding is too!

But Richard is in love and unconcerned about any indiscretions in Toni's past. He, Rosa, and the minister follow her to her room. There, Toni lies in bed, under the covers, moping about this latest calamity in her life; but the trio enters her room and Richard, sitting on the edge of her bed, begs her to reconsider and go through with the ceremony.

But Toni feels humiliated. She just huddles in bed and refuses to answer. So Richard takes the initiative and instructs the minister to go ahead and begin the wedding ceremony, right then and there. The padre asks Richard: "Do you take this woman?" and Richard replies with an enthusiastic "Yes." Then the padre turns to the recumbent Toni and asks, "Do you take this man?" We can see her reply with a vigorous "No!" Again he asks her. Again she shouts "No!" So the preacher closes his Bible and prepares to leave, his duty unfulfilled.

Now it's Toni's turn. Her face suddenly radiant, she reaches out from the covers and grabs the preacher's sleeve. "Ask me again," she smiles.