Matrimonial Bed (The)
- Director: Michael Curtiz
- Writer: Yves Mirande; André Mouézy-Éon
CGiii Comment
They don't come 'camper' than this...or, more convoluted.
A 'dead' man resurfaces as a camp-but-straight hairdresser with amnesia...his 'widow' has remarried - he is hynotized into remembering and all Hell is let loose...total rubbish.
There are a couple of memorable lines:
"I may be a hairdresser but that doesn't mean I hold men's hands"
"You were gay, a bit dandified"
A pre-code farce that amplifies the amount of trash that Hollywood dished out, continuously and generously.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
It is the fifth anniversary of the death of Adolphe Noblet who died in a train wreck. His servant and friends still worship him but don't care much for his wife Sylvaine's second husband Gustave with whom she has recently had a child. Sylvaine's friends recommend that she use a new hairdresser, Leopold Trebel. However, when this womanizing coiffeur arrives, he turns out to be Adolphe suffering from amnesia. A doctor restores his memory using hypnosis but in the process wipes out everything that has happened to him over the last five years. Adolphe thinks he has been unconscious for only a few hours and the doctor tries to keep the truth from him thinking the shock could kill him. This becomes even more difficult as Leopold's wife, with whom he has had two sets of twins, shows up and insists he is Leopold. Gustave finally tells Adolphe/Leopold the truth and he is left with the decision of which man and in which family he wants to be.
Cast & Characters
Frank Fay as Leopold Trebel;
James Gleason as Gustave Corton;
Lilyan Tashman as Sylvaine;
Beryl Mercer as Corinne, the cook;
Florence Eldridge as Juliet Corton;
Vivien Oakland as Susan Trebel;
Arthur Edmund Carewe as Dr. Fried;
Marion Byron as Marrieanne, the new maid;
Flora Finch as Vosin, the nursemaid;
James Bradbury Sr. as August Charbonnier;
Dickie Moore as One of Susan's sons