No, this is not a GREAT film, but it's better than I expected it to be.Don Ameche is always pleasant to watch, including in this film as a movie director. Dorothy Lamour always seemed a bit worn to me, although a good sidekick in the Road films with Hope and Crosby. But in this film she shines. There is one excellent dance number later in the film, although it appeared to me a double was doing her dancing. The plot is decent. A film director is fired when his leading lady has a breakdown due tot he stress. So, at a carnival, he finds a promising replacement...if he can pass her off as being French. A sort of love/hate relationship develops, which I'm not sure quite works, although the overall picture does as Ameche tries his hand at a Pygmalion effort.This is a very good "B" musical, and frankly there were occasional "A" musicals that were inferior to this. So sit back and enjoy it...at least once.

SLIGHTLY FRENCH is a delightful little trifle starring Dorothy Lamour as a cynical carnival performer who is wooed by movie director Don Ameche to star in his new movie and feign being a great French star imported to America for the film. (Interestingly, this very plot was used that same year in IT'S A GREAT FEELING with Doris Day - and Day's Faux French femme's last name was Lamour!!!). Elegantly filmed by cultish director Douglas Sirk, SLIGHTLY FRENCH is not a classic but it's a very appealing little comedy/musical/drama with two excellent stars. Cannot believe one reviewer on IMDb wrote Lamour "never became a movie star" away from Hope and Crosby, she was only one of the biggest stars 1936-1949 in pictures and in 1941 was VARIETY magazine's top female box-office attraction. She starred in many excellent films sans Bob or Bing, THE HURRICANE, THE FLEET'S IN, JOHNNY APOLLO, SPAWN OF THE NORTH, etc. You'll note she gets billing over Ameche in this film. Alas, few of the big movie stars of the era have had their careers locked away in the vaults as Dorothy has - most of her films were at Paramount, and Universal (which now owns the 1930-1948 Paramount films) has done a very poor job getting most of them in circulation so most do only know her today from the Road movies. She was a great singer, a delightful screen star, and a fairly good actress too. Here's hoping this Columbia release will show up on Turner Classic Movies soon so more can see this lovely glamour girl in this underrated gem.

To totally disagree with the previous reviewers, I think that this, together with all other early Sirk movies I've seen, is nothing short of staggering. Filled with one-liners worthy of a Howard Hawks/Ben Hecht movie, it's not only early evidence of Sirk's genius for space and light and shadow, but also a highly sophisticated and perverse rendition of the Pygmalion theme. It's a measure of Sirk's genius that the characters, though formulaic, spring to life as in a Greek tragedy - or a Raoul Walsh, CB de Mille etc. movie- through the sheer strength of stereotype. Here, as elsewhere, Sirk is a bit like Frank Sinatra: cool and detached on surface, but revealing underneath the filth and the fury ;> I saw it today (6APR07) at the Film Forum NYC and it blew me away. Someone release it in DVD fast, it's an (to my knowledge) unsung masterpiece.

Bad movie made only for the lead star's fans.This is the first movie of Lamour where I get a good look at what kind of acting ability Lamour has.One will see it is quite limited but she is really a great salesman.She just hypnotises us with charm and beauty.One can also see she was a born entertainer indeed.If one likes her syle,this movie will truly delight her fans.just to see Lamour have fun with this formula romance/musical/comedy once more!I for one love this stuff.I rate Lamour as the third top sexy star of the 1940's behind Marilyn Monroe (mostly a model at that time) and Hedy Lamarr.....