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Swindler Shewood Nash (William Powell) is stealing fashions from Paris under the designers noses. Lynn Mason (Bette Davis!) helps him and falls for him. There's more to the plot but I was basically so bored I could have cared less!

The plot is silly with stupid dialogue and painfully unfunny comedy. This would be totally unwatchable if it weren't for a few things. Powell is great in his role. It's a nothing role but he pulls it off. Davis (this was made before she hit it big) is great despite having nothing to work with. Also she looks interesting in peroxide hair! The fashions by Orry-Kelly are actually pretty interesting. I don't think they'd ever work in reality but they're fun to look at. And then there's a beautiful elaborate ballet worked out by Busby Berkeley that is just incredible to watch. These elements make this worth catching...but it's still just a minor little musical. I give it a 4.

By 1934, when this movie was made, First National had been absorbed by Warner Brothers and produced mostly small-budget movies, such as this one. It tells the story of a con artist (Powell) who goes to Paris with his artist (Davis) with the intent of copying the designs of the great houses of fashion so that they can sell them to department stores back in the States. Instead, when that doesn't work, they discover the inspiration for Paris' leading couturier, and open their own house of fashion, which has a brief success until things fall apart.

If the dates weren't wrong, you'd imagine this was a low-budget knock-off of Roberta, which deals with some of the same themes. It probably owed something to the 1933 musical behind that movie, such as the American woman who lives in Paris disguised as Eastern European royalty.

It has none of Roberta's elegance, though, either in its fashions or, more importantly, in the dancing and singing of its leads. The one big dance number doesn't involve any of the principals, just a lot of skimpily-clad women in ostrich feathers. During all the time the musical review is under rehearsal, you would swear you're in New York, and not Paris. Indeed, there is no effort at all to convince the audience that the action is really taking place in the French capital.

Powell and Davis are fine, Frank McCue and Hugh Herbert do their standard routines, which are better used in other movies. There's nothing memorable here, and nothing Parisian.