English text below

Toto Duryea gilt in Paris als moderner Don Juan. Er verliebt sich in Diane, die Tochter eines amerikanischen Millionärs, der dies angesichts von Totos Ruf mit Missfallen beobachtet. Toto greift zu allerlei Listen, um Diane für sich zu gewinnen. Da bescheidet ihm ein Arzt, er habe ein Aorta-Aneurysma und müsse Frauen und Alkohol abschwören, da sonst der sichere Tod drohe. Als Totos frühere Freundinnen sich um den armen Kranken kümmern wollen, steht es schlecht um seine ärztliche Anweisung, jegliche Erregung zu vermeiden. Frank Fay, ein Vaudeville-Star, sollte in Hollywood in Komödien Karriere machen, hatte aber nicht den erhofften Erfolg. Michael Curtiz, 1926 in den USA eingewandert, führte Regie bei diesem (recht braven) Pre-Code-Schwank, der Brooks ihre letzte Rolle in einer Komödie bescherte, neben Joan Blondell und vielen anderen dekorativen Damen. (mb)

"God's Gift to Women, a French bedroom farce which is just mild when it is isn't mildly risqué, is raised to the dignity of agreeable light comedy by its leading player, Frank Fay. As a gay boulevardier with a rather incredible faculty for separating pretty women from their better judgment, Mr. Fay is the whole show. He softens the banality of dialogue that would be better left unspoken and he tricks his audiences into believing that the stock farce situations are both amusing and fresh, which they really are not.
As Toto Duryea, Mr. Fay is in love with the daughter of an American millionaire, and he resorts to curious expedients to win her. At one point he disguises himself as a butler to gain an entrance to her home. A few scenes later he is a mustachioed French janitor. He intercepts her on the street and forces her to accept his company by threatening to make a scene. He gets his hand caught in the door of her car to win her sympathy. He espies her in a café, turns out the lights and carries her off. Duryea is that sort of comedic Don Juan. It gets to be quite funny toward the end, when Mr. Fay makes a desperate effort to avoid his female friends. He has been warned of an enlarged aorta which will burst if he is unduly excited. Sadly he drapes the statuary in his apartment and takes to bed, but he is besieged by volunteer nurses. (...)
Laura La Plante is the girl in the case, and Joan Blondell, Louise Brooks and Yola D'Avril figure prominently among the feminine admirers of the young Frenchman. There are many others in the cast, but it is exclusively Mr. Fay's show.» (Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times, April 18, 1931)

Drehbuch: Joseph Jackson, Raymond Griffith, nach dem Theaterstück von Jane Hinton
Kamera: Robert Kurrie
Musik: David Mendoza (ungenannt)
Schnitt: James Gibbon

Mit: Frank Fay (Toto Duryea), Laura La Plante (Diane Churchill), Louise Brooks (Florine), Joan Blondell (Fifi), Charles Winninger (John Churchill), Alan Mowbray (Auguste, Totos Butler), Arthur Edmund Carewe (Dr. Louis Dumont), Billy House (Monsieur Cesare)

72 Min., sw, Digital SD, E