The Gilded Lily
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Wesley Ruggles
Claudette Colbert
Fred Macmurray
Raymond Milland
C. Aubrey Smith
Edward Craven
Photos & Videos
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Stenographer Marilyn David, known as Lynn, and her best friend, reporter Peter Dawes, meet every Thursday night on a bench at the New York Public Library, where they eat popcorn. Lynn, however, meets vacationing English aristocrat Charles Gray Granville, and they fall in love, although he keeps his royal identity a secret. Gray is already engaged to a British woman, Helen Fergus, and when he tells his father, Duke of Lomeshire, that he wants to marry Lynn, the duke insists they return to England and break the engagement properly. Gray lies to Lynn about why he's leaving New York, but Pete meets the Granvilles at the dock, where Gray tells him that nothing of significance happened to him in New York and that he is still engaged to Helen. Furious that Gray used the woman he loves, Pete prints an article about Lynn, whom he calls "No Girl," leaving Gray at the altar and forcing him to return to England heartbroken. When the Granvilles, onboard ship, receive word that Helen has broken her engagement because of the scandal, the duke assumes Lynn is trying to blackmail him. Gray then sends Lynn a telegram at work asking her price to forget him, and when her boss subsequently calls her "duchess," she quits her job. Pete then decides to capitalize on Lynn's publicity and make her a celebrity. He gets her a job as a singer and dancer at Nate's Cafe, despite the fact that she can neither sing nor dance. At her opening, Lynn's self-effacing manner about her lack of talent wins laughs from the audience, and she becomes a hit. When the girl friend of Otto Bushe, New York's most infamous playboy, insults Lynn, she has the woman escorted out of Nate's and makes the papers. Following one clever publicity stunt after another, "No Girl" becomes a household name, and as a nightclub star, she goes to London to perform. Gray is in the audience, and Lynn, assuming they are still in love, goes out with him. Heartbroken, Pete graciously returns to the states to allow Lynn her happiness, but sends her a box of popcorn to assure her he still loves her. When Gray asks Lynn to go away with him for a week, insinuating that she has loose morals, she announces to the press that she is returning to New York to sit on a bench and eat popcorn. Lynn arrives in New York on a Thursday night in the snow and rushes through a throng of admirers, tearing her mink, to the library bench to meet Pete. After tussling with a cab driver because he has no money on him, Pete arrives, popcorn in hand, and he and Lynn embrace on the bench.
Director
Wesley Ruggles
Cast
Claudette Colbert
Fred Macmurray
Raymond Milland
C. Aubrey Smith
Edward Craven
Luis Alberni
Donald Meek
Claude King
Charles Irwin
Forrester Harvey
Edward Gargan
Charles Wilson
Grace Bradley
Pat Somerset
Tom Dugan
Warren Hymer
Eddie Borden
Michelette Burani
Ferdinand Munier
Rita Carlyle
Leonid Kinskey
James Quinn
Jimmie Aubrey
Robert Dudley
Phil Tead
Walter Shumway
Reginald Barlow
Rollo Lloyd
Cameron Smith
Esther Muir
Patsy O'byrne
Dixie Loftin
Monte Vandergrift
Mark Strong
Hayden Stevenson
Perry Ivins
Cherry Campbell
Samuel E. Hines
Eddie Dunn
Clive Morgan
Jerry Fletcher
Ambrose Barker
David Thursby
Stanley Mann
Mel Ruick
Neil Fitzgerald
Bob Thom
George Humbert
Georgie Billings
Jerry Mandy
William Begg
Dick French
Ronald Rondell
Rebecca Wassem
Adele Corliss
Gale Ronn
Albert Pollet
Cyril Ring
Rudolph Cameron
Jack Egan
Jack Norton
Jay Eaton
Jay Belasco
Major Francis
Hyman Fink
Frank Filen
Jack Albin
Bill Phillips
Crew
Melville Baker
Travis Banton
Claude Binyon
Emanuel Cohen
Sam Coslow
Farciot Edouart
William Howard Hoeffer
Arthur Johnston
Jack Kirkland
Gladys Lehman
Albert Lewis
Otho Lovering
Victor Milner
M. M. Paggi
Marguerite Roberts
Tom Satterfield
Basil Woon
Adolph Zukor
Photo Collections
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
But popcorn - ah, popcorn was made for watching the world go by. Look. I stick my hand in the bag without taking my eyes off the street. I throw some popcorn in my craw. I chew...and I'm still looking. That's what I call class.- Peter Dawes
Sure. Peanut eaters don't know how to live.- Marilyn David
Pete, you're a smart fellow. What do poor little working girls usually do next?- Marilyn David
Well, they usually drown themselves, one way or the other.- Peter Dawes
I'll take the other.- Marilyn David
I'm just a freak!- Marilyn David
Trivia
Notes
This film's title was briefly changed to One Night Like This but, according to Daily Variety, exhibitors insisted that the studio retain the original title. As reported in Daily Variety, Paramount was unable to find an English actor suitable for the lead in this film and tried to borrow Franchot Tone from M-G-M, but was turned down because he was already at work on Paramount's Lives of a Bengal Lancer and M-G-M wanted him back as soon as that film was completed. Daily Variety also reported that the reception of the film following its preview was so favorable that Paramount decided to make a permanent directing/writing team of Wesley Ruggles and Claude Binyon. According to the Paramount Script Collection at the AMPAS Library, this film was based in part on Melville Baker and Jack Kirkland's original screen story "Gaby Deslys." The title is presumably a reference to a French dancer named Gaby Deslys, who was famous in the teens and made her screen debut in the Paramount film Her Triumph (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1911-20; F1.1929). Hollywood Reporter production charts add Hyman Fink, Jack Albin and Bill Phillips to the cast; although it is unclear whether or not they appear in the final print. According to a February 13, 1935 Hollywood Reporter news item, "Restless," an incidental musical theme in The Gilded Lily, music by Tom Satterfield, lyrics by Sam Coslow, was being issued in sheet music form by Abe Frankl of Famous Music Company. This film marked the first of seven films in which Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray starred between 1935 and 1948. Colbert and MacMurray recreated their roles in The Gilded Lily on January 11, 1937 in a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast. The 1921 Paramount romantic comedy The Gilded Lily is unrelated to the 1935 film, although the plot has some similarities (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1921-30; F2.2072).
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States 1935
Released in United States 1935
