Bluebeard's 8th Wife (1938)

March 25, 1938 (US) • Comedy, Romance • 85m

Overview

American multi-millionaire Michael Brandon marries his eighth wife, Nicole, the daughter of a broke French Marquis. But she doesn't want to be only a number in the line of his ex-wives and undertakes her own strategy to tame him.

Director

Ernst Lubitsch

Writers

Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder

Top Billed

Claudette Colbert

Keywords

wife department store millionaire screwball comedy meet cute unconsummated marriage romantic pursuit comedy of remarriage ne'er do well serial bridegroom prenuptial agreement

Where to watch

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Top Billed Cast

Claudette Colbert

Nicole De Loiselle

Gary Cooper

Michael Brandon

Edward Everett Horton

Marquis De Loiselle

David Niven

Albert De Regnier

Elizabeth Patterson

Aunt Hedwige

Herman Bing

Monsieur Pepinard

Warren Hymer

Kid Mulligan

Franklin Pangborn

Assistant Hotel Manager

Armand Cortes

Assistant Hotel Manager

Rolfe Sedan

Floorwalker

Lawrence Grant

Professor Urganzeff

Lionel Pape

Monsieur Potin

Tyler Brooke

Clerk

Leon Ames

Ex-Chauffeur (uncredited)

Gino Corrado

Waiter Arranging Furniture (uncredited)

Joseph Crehan

American Tourist (uncredited)

George Davis

Maurice (uncredited)

Mariska Aldrich

Nurse at Door (uncredited)

Lenore Aubert

Party Guest (uncredited)

Eugene Borden

Waiter on Stairs (uncredited)

Barlowe Borland

Uncle Fernandel (uncredited)

Marie Burton

(uncredited)

Albert D'Arno

Newsboy (uncredited)

Dorothy Dayton

(uncredited)

Jean De Briac

Waiter in Hall (uncredited)

Ray De Ravenne

Package Clerk (uncredited)

Sayre Dearing

Nightclub Patron (uncredited)

Paula DeCardo

(uncredited)

Blanche Franke

Cashier (uncredited)

Norah Gale

(uncredited)

Pauline Garon

Customer (uncredited)

Grace Goodall

Nurse (uncredited)

Sacha Guitry

Man Leaving Hotel in France (uncredited)

Harriette Haddon

(uncredited)

Charles Halton

Monsieur de la Coste (uncredited)

Chuck Hamilton

Male Nurse in Sanitarium (uncredited)

Olaf Hytten

Store President's Valet (uncredited)

Barbara Jackson

(uncredited)

Lola Jensen

(uncredited)

Gwen Kenyon

(uncredited)

Harry Lamont

Head Porter (uncredited)

Sally Martin

Little Girl on Beach (uncredited)

Joyce Mathews

(uncredited)

Harold Minjir

Photographer (uncredited)

Carol Parker

(uncredited)

Albert Petit

Railway Employee (uncredited)

John Picorri

Train Conductor (uncredited)

Ruth Rogers

(uncredited)

Joseph Romantini

Headwaiter (uncredited)

Ronald R. Rondell

Laughing Man in Movie Theatre (uncredited)

Amzie Strickland

(uncredited)

Harry Tenbrook

Male Nurse in Sanitarium (uncredited)

Jacques Vanaire

Barbuchet (uncredited)

Michael Visaroff

Store Vice-President (uncredited)

Dorothy White

(uncredited)

Gloria Williams

(uncredited)

Alex Woloshin

Porter #1 (uncredited)

Wolfgang Zilzer

Book Salesman (uncredited)

Crew

Ernst Lubitsch

Director

Charles Brackett

Screenplay

Billy Wilder

Screenplay

Ernst Lubitsch

Producer

William Shea

Editor

Hans Dreier

Art Direction

Alfred Savoir

Theatre Play

Robert Usher

Art Direction

Travis Banton

Costume Design

A. E. Freudeman

Set Decoration

Leo Tover

Director of Photography

Milba K. Lloyd

Sculptor

Adolph Zukor

Presenter

Eric Locke

Camera Operator

Werner R. Heymann

Original Music Composer

Charlton Andrews

Adaptation

William LeBaron

Executive Producer

Don Johnson

Sound Recordist

Friedrich Hollaender

Original Music Composer

Farciot Edouart

Visual Effects

John Leipold

Additional Music

George Parrish

Additional Music

Charles Schoenbaum

Additional Photography

Harry D. Mills

Sound Recordist

John Leipold

Orchestrator

Boris Morros

Music Director

Reviews

tmdb28039023

⭐ 6/10

September 15, 2022

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife was the first of two collaborations between director Ernst Lubitsch and then up-and-coming screenwriter Billy Wilder. The film, all style and surface, is more Lubistch than Wilder, but the script co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett (a tandem that would create, among others, The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard) lends itself perfectly to the famous 'Lubistch touch' — the German filmmaker’s characteristic shrewd and methodical humor.

For Lubitsch, making laugh is like making love, and he isn’t the slightest bit interested in instant gratification; in fact, his approach is the comic equivalent of Hitchcock's definition of suspense. Michael (Gary Cooper) suffers from insomnia; Nicole (Claudette Colbert), whom he meets at the beginning of the story in the store where he goes to buy a pijama shirt (but no pants, which itself to an elaborately humorous visual gag), recommends “Professor Urganzeff's method ... take a long word, like 'Czechoslovakia' ... While you spell it backwards, you stretch and yawn between each letter … You only have to worry about 'slovakia.' By the time you get to "Czech" you will be fast asleep."

The second half of the film actually takes place in Czechoslovakia, where we finally get the real punchline to a joke that Lubitsch set up some half-hour ago (and to top it off, near the end of the movie we find out that there really is a Professor Urganzeff).

Michael is a 'serial husband'; marriage is such a revolving door for him that the suit he wears to his most recent wedding still has rice on it from the previous ceremony. Nicole is horrified to learn that Michael has been married seven times previously and calls off the wedding, much to her father's dismay.

Michael explains that he gives each of his wives a prenuptial agreement that guarantees $50,000 a year for life if they divorce. Nicole agrees to marry for double that amount, and proceeds to apply withhold sex (not in so many words, of course) to precipitate a divorce and because otherwise "it wouldn't be fair to my next husband."

As usual, Lubitsch knows that 'love' is not the stuff of drama but of farce, and that lovers are not so much to be pitied as ridiculed; on the other hand, he has a sincere appreciation for his characters, who are like little children, and he ultimately laughs with them, and not at them.

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Bluebeard's 8th Wife (1938)

Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder

Where to watch

Top Billed Cast

Crew

Reviews

tmdb28039023

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