Casino de Paris (1957)

Catherine Miller is the star of the Casino de Paris in Paris. There, the successful writer Alexander Gordy hears her and offers her the leading role in his new stage play. Delighted, Catherine accepts and, at her mother’s urging, travels to Cannes without quitting her job at the casino. She brings her parents along. In Cannes, Gordy’s secretary, Jacques Marval, is meanwhile in a bad mood. He is the ghostwriter of all Gordy’s successful plays, yet always remains in the shadow of the supposed star writer, who also finds it easy to charm women because of his fame. Jacques falls in love with Catherine, but believes Gordy has managed to seduce her, so he treats her condescendingly. Catherine’s father would prefer the down-to-earth Jacques as a son-in-law, while her mother favors the wealthy Gordy. Gordy, for his part, has the newspapers already reporting that he and Catherine will soon marry, but denies it when Catherine, taken by surprise, confronts him. In the end, Catherine’s father, Jacques, and Mario, the head of the Casino de Paris, join forces: Jacques writes a play about a wealthy writer who secretly has his secretary write his plays, and a woman caught between the two men. Catherine is to take the leading role, though she does not know this yet. She hears about it from someone else over the phone and suspects a plot, especially since she would lose her engagement with Gordy as a result. Only Gordy explains to her that Jacques actually wrote all the plays that made Gordy famous, and that Jacques was too modest to admit this publicly in front of her. She sets out to find him. A little later, Catherine and Jacques are onstage at the Casino de Paris, performing in Jacques’s musical play, which becomes a great success.