pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...
John Barrymore
John Barrymore (born John Sidney Blyth; February 14 or 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor on stage, screen and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly att ...
and
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy (born Myrna Adele Williams; August 2, 1905 – December 14, 1993) was an American film, television and stage actress. Trained as a dancer, Loy devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. ...
. It was based on the 1928 French play of the same name by
Marcel Pagnol
Marcel Paul Pagnol (; 28 February 1895 – 18 April 1974) was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Regarded as an auteur, in 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie française. Although his work is less fashionabl ...
. Another film version of ''Topaze'', this one made in the original French was also released that year, starring
Louis Jouvet
Jules Eugène Louis Jouvet (24 December 1887 – 16 August 1951) was a French actor, theatre director and filmmaker.
Early life
Jouvet was born in Crozon. He had a stutter as a young man and originally trained as a pharmacist. He receive ...
in the title role. Subsequently, Pagnol himself directed another film titled '' Topaze'' in 1936.
Plot
Prof. Auguste A. Topaze (
John Barrymore
John Barrymore (born John Sidney Blyth; February 14 or 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor on stage, screen and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly att ...
), an honest, naive chemist and schoolteacher at the Stegg Academy in Paris, loses his job when he refuses to accede to a demand by the Baroness de La Tour-La Tour to alter the grades of her bratty son, Charlemagne.
On the same day, Friday the 13th, Topaze calls on the Baron de La Tour-La Tour's mistress, Coco (
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy (born Myrna Adele Williams; August 2, 1905 – December 14, 1993) was an American film, television and stage actress. Trained as a dancer, Loy devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. ...
), who is looking for a tutor for her sister's son, Alphonse, and had gotten Topaze's name from La Tour. Upon meeting and listening to the sincere remarks of Topaze, the baron, head of the La Tour Chemical Works, decides to employ him as a scientific front for his phony curative water.
After an encounter at a cafe, where the Baron narrowly avoids a scene with his wife by calling Coco "Madame Topaze", Coco reveals the true nature of her relation to the Baron to the naive Professor. When they arrive late back to Coco's apartment, the Baron is jealous, but soon realizes Topaze is entirely innocent.
Unaware that the water, "Sparkling Topaze," which is being sold all over Paris, does not contain the medicinal formula he invented for it, Topaze is shocked when Dr. Bomb (who had turned down the "honor" of having the fraudulent water named for him) shows up, demanding 100,000 francs from the Baron or he will expose the fraudulent product. But the Baron blackmails him in return with information about his previous identity, and Bomb is dragged out.
After confirming for himself, in the lab and in a local restaurant, that "Sparkling Topaze" is in fact phony, a dazed Topaze returns to Coco's apartment the next morning, where Coco fusses over him. At first, he is ready to be arrested, but the men who are shown in are instead a delegation from the Bureau of Awards and Merits, who award him the Academic Palms. All are friends and business associates of the Baron, and the scales begin to fall from Professor Topaze's eyes.
His naivete thoroughly destroyed, declaring "Topaze lies dead in an alley", Topaze decides to fight back by becoming more corrupt than his mentors. He remakes his image and, with Bomb as his assistant, he opens his own office, where he makes dignitaries wait to see him. One is Dr. Stegg, who now wants Topaze to preside at the graduation at the school. Topaze succeeds in blackmailing the Baron into a partnership in his company with a complete account of his relationship with Coco, which he threatens to show to the Baroness, whose name the shares in the company are in.
At the Stegg Academy graduation, Topaze, who has also garnered the romantic attention of Coco, is to award the prize, which he is told is to go to his former nemesis, Charlemagne de La Tour-La Tour. He gives a little speech about his experiences in the great world, that honesty isn't always rewarded and that villainy often receives more applause than virtue. Declaring that he will not reward wrongdoers, he shows up Charlemagne's ignorance relative to all his classmates, then awards the prize to them instead.
He is last seen escorting Coco into the cinema.
Cast
*
John Barrymore
John Barrymore (born John Sidney Blyth; February 14 or 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor on stage, screen and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly att ...
as Professor Auguste A. Topaze
*
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy (born Myrna Adele Williams; August 2, 1905 – December 14, 1993) was an American film, television and stage actress. Trained as a dancer, Loy devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. ...
as Coco
* Reginald Mason as Baron Philippe de La Tour-La Tour
*
Jobyna Howland
Jobyna Howland (March 31, 1880 – June 7, 1936) was an American stage and screen actress.
Early years
Howland was born on March 31, 1880, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her parents were Joby Howland, a Civil War veteran who at age 11 was one ...
as Baroness Hortense de La Tour-La Tour
*
Jackie Searl
John E. Searl (July 7, 1921 – April 29, 1991) was an American actor. He portrayed bratty kids in several films, and often had only small roles, such as "Robin Figg" in 1934's ''Strictly Dynamite''.
Early years
His name is sometimes written ...
as Charlemagne de La Tour-La Tour
*
Albert Conti
Albert De Conti Cadassamare (29 January 1887 – 18 January 1967), professionally billed as Albert Conti, was an Austrian-Hungarian-born Italian-American film actor.
Life
Born in the village of Gorizia (now, part of Italy), Conti achieved mode ...
as Henri de Fairville
*
Frank Reicher
Frank Reicher (born Franz Reicher; December 2, 1875 – January 19, 1965) was a German-born American actor, director and producer. He is best known for playing Captain Englehorn in the 1933 film ''King Kong''.
Early life
Reicher was born in Mu ...
as Dr. Stegg
*
Luis Alberni
Luis Alberni (October 4, 1886 – December 23, 1962) was a Spanish-born American character actor of stage and films.
Early years
Alberni was born in Barcelona, Spain, on October 4, 1886. He acted in stock theater for four years in Marseille ...
as Dr. Bomb
Reception
''Topaze'' was the first RKO film to play
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and theater at 1260 Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplace of the Nation", it is the headquarters for ...
. It won the 1933
National Board of Review Award for Best Film The National Board of Review Award for Best Film is one of the annual awards given (since 1932) by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
Winners
* † = Winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture
* ‡ = Nominated for the Academy Award ...
.
Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973) was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for ''The New York Times'', working from October 1924 to September 1934. is an agreeable and effective film, and Mr. Barrymore lends no little artistry to the rôle of the benign Professor Auguste Topaze, a part played with rare skill on the stage by Frank Morgan."
In 1935, a planned reissue was rejected by
Joseph Breen
Joseph Ignatius Breen (October 14, 1888 – December 5, 1965) was an American film censor with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America who applied the Hays Code to film production.Staff report (December 8, 1965). Joseph I ...
as the
Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
was now being strictly enforced and the adulterous relationship between Coco and Philippe was unacceptable to the Breen Office.
Preservation status
*The film has been preserved by the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.''Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress'', (<-book title) p.186 c.1978 by The American Film Institute