THE GRAND DUCHESS AND THE WAITER
Starring Adolphe Menjou and Florence Vidor
PHOTOPLAY
April, 1926
A dramatic bonbon that will not improve your mind nor help you hold your husband nor solve how to pay the mortgage. But how it will delight you if you belong to that class which finds an unlifted eyebrow more stimulating than a heaving chest.
It is love in high society with a charm as gentle and exhilarating as spring about it. Like all well-made bonbons, it is pure and sweet and ultra-sophisticated.
Malcolm St. Clair has directed it flawlessly. Another picture of this caliber from this young man and his will be a name well worth following to any box office.
The title tells the whole story. In fact, the story matters not at all in this picture. It is the talents of Adolph (sic) Menjou and Florence Vidor shining forth from it like bubbles in champagne that make it the delicious thing it is.
Florence, appearing more beautiful and smartly gowned than ever before, plays an impoverished and very grand Duchess. Menjou is a French sportsman, who pretends to be a waiter simply to know and serve her. Suspecting his lowly love, the Grand Duchess, not suspecting his wealth, determines to humiliate him into leaving. She makes him wash the dogs. She makes him take them, four wolfhounds and two poms, for a walk in the park. She makes him sleep on her doorstep and retrieve her book from her bathtub. Menjou executes all her commands, suave and smitten to the end. And then when love begins to dawn on the Grand Duchess - well, go see it for yourself.
Sophistication and sex at their merriest are here. Yet so beautifully
is it all handled it is safe for everyone from grandma down to
the baby.
THE GRAND DUCHESS AND THE WAITER
starring Adolphe Menjou and Florence Vidor
MOTION PICTURE
May, 1926
We haven't a bit of doubt about Mal St. Clair's having gone Lubitsch after witnessing his directorial efforts with T.G.D. and the W. The Paramont playboy has cut a leaf from Herr Ernst's scrap-book which contained "Kiss Me Again." This new tidbit of humor is almost as thin as vapor. But while it "vapes," it manages to warm you with its steam.
The title tells it. The Russian revolution having thrown a lovely grand duchess out of a job, she comes to Paris as Florence Vidor and the suave Adolphe Menjou proceeds to dance attention upon her as a waiter. The fun of the piece is in watching the duchess fall for the tea hound.
There are times when it becomes quite silly and inane, and
if you judge it too closely, it has its faults. Really it is nothing
but a series of episodes joined together -- episodes touched with
satire and caprice. It is cleverly picturized and played adroitly
by the Menjou and Miss Vidor. It scores heavily with its ginger
and spice and speaks volumes for St. Clair who knows how to season
a dish after the Lubitsch manner.
For more information, see "The Grand Duchess and the Waiter" as our "Feature of the Month"