Friday | October 6, 2006 9:00 pm

Adorable

Screening on Film

Directed by William Dieterle.
With Janet Gaynor, Henry Garat, C. Aubrey Smith.
US, 1933, 35mm, black & white, 85 min.

Gaynor again essays musical comedy in this delightful costume romp based on a popular German film from the same period. Set in a mythical European kingdom lavishly realized on the studio backlot, Adorable spotlights Gaynor as a rebellious princess with a penchant for partying incognito with the proles, including a suave delicatessen owner (Garat) who is himself a lieutenant in disguise. This humorous tale of romance and mistaken identity is further enlivened by catchy songs added to the original German score and some positively whimsical flights of fantasy and cinematic legerdemain directed with great panache by the patrician German expat Wilhelm (aka William) Dieterle.