The Misleading Lady
Cast & Crew
Stuart Walker
Claudette Colbert
Edmund Lowe
Stuart Erwin
Robert Strange
George Meeker
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Helen Steele, bored with her high society lifestyle, makes a bet with theatrical producer Sydney Parker that she can make mining engineer Jack Craigen, who has just returned from the jungles of South America, propose to her in three days. If Helen succeeds, Parker will cast her as the siren in his upcoming play. Jack tells Helen civilized women have a lot of "permanently wrong ideas" and that male cannibals show their love by pulling their women around by their hair. Helen's theatrics are successful and Jack falls in love with her and proposes to her while a home phonograph recorder captures his words. When Jack hears the recording being played to a roomful of people, he accuses Helen of making a mockery of him. Helen's fiancé, Bob Tracy, then enters and finds Helen without her ring and scolds her. Jack abducts Helen in his plane and takes her to his cabin, where he drags her around like a cannibal, accusing her of being shrewish. He then puts a bear collar on her and chains her to the fireplace. Jack discovers that someone has broken into his cabin, and "Boney," an escaped mental patient from nearby Sunnyvale institution who believes he is Napoleon, emerges from the attic. When reporter Fitzpatrick phones to tell Jack that Tracy is on his way with a gun, Jack releases Helen, who knocks him out during a kiss and escapes to the ranger station. Boney then hides Jack, and Fitzpatrick arrives and thinks Boney is Jack. Eventually, Jack wakes and Fitzpatrick frees him, then orders the ranger to return Helen. After Tracy arrives with a gun and Jack disarms him, Boney asks Jack if he loves "Madame le duchess." Jack admits he is sorry for overreacting to Helen recording his proposal. The ranger drags Helen to Jack's cabin, where Parker explains the bet to Jack and awards Helen the role. Two men from Sunnyvale then reclaim Boney, who makes Jack Field Marshal of France, then shouts that the duchess loves Lafayette. Helen and Jack then kiss.
Director
Stuart Walker
Cast
Claudette Colbert
Edmund Lowe
Stuart Erwin
Robert Strange
George Meeker
Selena Royle
Curtis Cooksey
William Gargan
Nina Walker
Edgar Nelson
Fred Stewart
Harry Ellerbe
Will Geer
Donald Macbride
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Paramount closed its studio in Astoria, Queens (in New York City) upon the completion of this film on 1 March 1932.
Notes
An early title for this film was Sensation. A still from the production shows Gertrude Michael in the cast, but her appearance in the final film has not been confirmed. According to a news item in Motion Picture Daily on February 24, 1932, Paramount closed its Astoria, Long Island studio on March 1, 1932 upon the completion of this film. The Astoria Studios became known as Eastern Service Studios and, beginning in 1934, were used by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur for four films that were released by Paramount (see the entry for Crimes Without Passion above). The film's pressbook states that autogyro (helicopter) scenes were made at Floyd Bennett Field in New York with Jim Ray at the controls. Earlier versions of this film include the 1916 Essanay film The Misleading Lady, directed by Arthur Berthelet and starring Henry B. Walthall and Edna Mayo, and the 1920 Metro film of the same title, directed by George Irving and George W. Terwilliger and starring Bert Lytell and Lucy Cotton (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1911-20; F1.2964 and F1.2965).
