This is a story, set in Paris, about a con artist falling in love, resolving to reform, and then despairing about his chances and moving on. William Powell plays the con artist, and his love interest is Carole Lombard who plays Mary Kendall, daughter of a wealthy business owner from the U.S. But, Powell isn't just any con artist. He's a master who runs a sophisticated yet simple scheme. Wynne Gibson plays an accomplice of Powell's Michael Trevor. As Irene Hoffa, she carries a torch for him. She's jealous and is torn by love-hate feelings for the guy. Some other supporting cast do their parts well. The story is just a version of many others one has read, heard or watched on film. Bad guy meets girl, falls in love and goes straight. I don't mean to make it sound like a trifle, but something isn't quite right about this film. It's supposed to be a romantic drama. There is no chemistry between the two leads. Powell shows no emotions at all. His character has no life. He just seems to mope from one scene to another – head down and eyes toward the floor. It seems like Powell hasn't yet shaken that acting method from the silent films he made. He is capable of much better as we see in his many later films. The script isn't very good and the direction is lacking. It's a fair film for folks who enjoy Powell and Lombard movies. But it's nowhere near the considerable repertoire of very good films made by either star. I rate it six stars mostly for the good look it provides of some of the top supporting cast actors from the first decade of the talkies.

Having ordered Disc 1 of The Carole Lombard Collection from Netflix, I just watched the first of two films on it-Man of the World. She plays the young niece of a rich uncle in Paris who's trying to avoid a scandal. William Powell is a former reporter who actually is the blackmailer but doesn't let anyone know about that. That changes when he meets Ms. Lombard and her fiancée. I'll stop there and just say that while some dialogue exchanges are interesting, the pacing was lethargic to the point of me recognizing when the backgrounds were film projections whenever things threaten to get dull. I guess the fact that this was an early talkie had something to do with that. Still, it was interesting enough so on that note, Man of the World is worth a look if you're interested in this sort of thing.

... and yet I give it a mediocre rating, not a poor one. That's because who would expect an early 30's film starring William Powell, Carole Lombard, and Guy Kibbee with strong support by Wynne Gibson to be anything less than excellent? I know I wouldn't. The film is tortuously slow after starting out with a couple of promising scenes. The film opens with drunken American Harry Taylor (Guy Kibbee) accosting Michael Trevor (William Powell) on the streets of Paris thinking he was somebody else - he is. It turns out Trevor is an alias for an expatriate who was a stand-up journalist in America but had to take it on the lam after he got left holding the bag for something that is never clearly explained. At any rate, in the film Michael later explains that after he paid wrongfully for someone else's misdeed he decided he would start making others pay. Thus he starts a blackmailing racket in Paris without anybody truly knowing who he is but his two partners - Fred and Irene (Wynne Gibson). He has one rule though - he never victimizes women. He ends up blackmailing Harry Taylor for some fling with a blonde, but makes it look like he's doing him a favor by being a go-between for the unscrupulous scandal sheet operator that will print the news and Harry. This ends all of the clever scenes in the movie. Carole Lombard plays Harry's niece, Mary, who instantly falls for Michael, and the feeling is mutual. Michael wants to make a clean breast of his past to Mary, leave the crooked life behind him and marry the girl.The monkey wrench in the works? Wynne Gibson as Irene - she's Michael's ex and she's none too happy about it. She spends the rest of the movie being a shameless clinging back-stabbing harpy to the point where you want to chase her off with a mallet and let the two lovers have a happy ending.The acting and production values are the reason I give this one even five stars. William Powell's acting is the centerpiece of this film and he splendidly conveys - without that much dialogue - the persona of a man of the world with the weight of the world on his shoulders. However, the pace is awful, the conclusion will leave a bad taste in your mouth, and normally I would blame the director for such great performers putting my feet to sleep at times, but director Robert Wallace had and would direct some pretty good early talkies that didn't crawl along like this one at all, so I guess the cause of the mediocre result will always be a mystery.Recommended only to see Powell and Lombard together in the film that started their relationship and ultimately brought about their marriage.

The film isn't the greatest but not the worst film ever made. Okay, it's about Paris in the 1930s where American expatriates like William Powell's character go to make money, live cheaply, and escape the horrors of the Great Depression in the United States. William Powell is a great actor and perhaps one of the finest of his time. He does what he can with this weak script where he plays a publisher in Paris. He falls in love with the niece of a wealthy American played by the wonderful Carole Lombard. Wynne Gibson has a supporting role as the other woman in William Trevor (Powell's character) life who knows his secrets. I liked Wynne Gibson in another film and she was a great actress here as well. The actors do the best with the weak script but it was Paramount and other studios who produced and made films a lot more than they do today. Studio film actors and actresses had contracts to make a certain amount per year. Yes, not all of them were brilliant. Some of them like this film is one of mediocre types of it's time.