Paris Calling
ADVENTURE pounding to the beat of your heart!
Marianne Jannetier, a well-to-do Parisian, engaged to Andre Benoit, a high-ranking government official, flees the city when the goose-stepping Nazi storm-troopers arrive. When her mother dies on the road to Bordeaux as a result of Nazi bombing, she returns to Paris and joins the underground movement. Nicholas Jordan, an American member of the RAF, stranded in Paris after the evacuation is also working with the Paris underground. Marianne kills her former fiancée, a pro-Nazi informant, for the traitorous state papers he is carrying, and she and Jordan try to flee over a French seaport...
Cast

Elisabeth Bergner
Marianne Jannetier

Randolph Scott
Flight Lt. Nicholas "Nick" Jordan

Basil Rathbone
Andre Benoit

Eduardo Ciannelli
Mouche, the bartender

Gale Sondergaard
Madame Colette

Lee J. Cobb
Captain Schwabe

Charles Arnt
Nazi Lt. Lantz

William Edmunds
'Professor', the bar owner

J. Pat O'Malley
Sgt. 'Mack' McAvoy

Gene Garrick
The Panicked German Co-Pilot [script name: Wolfgang Schmidt]

Pedro de Cordoba
Fiery Speaker at Jannetier House

Otto Reichow
Gruber, Nazi raid parties lead officer

Georges Renavent
The Jennatier Butler

Elisabeth Risdon
Madame Jennetier

Rosalind Ivan
French Inn Proprietress

Harlan Briggs
French Inn Proprietor

Ian Wolfe
The Careless Underground Agent

Georges Metaxa
Room Service Waiter, at Benoit's hotel room

Adolph Milar
Gestapo Agent Watching Outside the Bar, et seq.

Jeff Corey
Benoit's Male Secretary
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Reviews
CinemaSerf
"The Germans bombed her mother... There wasn't even enough left for a good ragout... She was a fine cow!" That's the kind of sentiment that the wealthy "Marianne" (Elisabeth Bergner) encounters as she and her mother attempt to flee Paris ahead of the encroaching Nazis. Thing is, isn't not just the cow that gets killed - her mother, too, and so she vows to return and do what she can for the resistance. Initially, she helps stranded American pilot "Nick" (Randolph Scott) with whom she soon falls in love, but somehow she also manages to arouse suspicions amongst her own camp that only a special mission can assuage. That involves her becoming the mistress of a Vichy French government minister "Benoit" (Basil Rathbone) whom everyone suspects is about to cave into the invaders. Things quickly turn distinctly perilous for the young woman, and she and her beau must try to escape the country for the safety of Britain before the net of the menacing "Schwabe" (Lee J. Cobb) closes in on them. It's all pretty standard fayre this, with Bergner rather a fish out of water but not so much as the oddly cast Cobb and there isn't enough of Rathbone to make much difference. Scott actually acquits himself ok, but then again he really only has to smile and play the handsome hero. It does raise the interesting issue of collaboration and the relative merits of those who wanted to fight on against those who wanted to stop further bloodshed, but that theme is rather more waved at us than explored fully. In the end, it's a perfectly watchable wartime morale booster that passes the time fine.
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