For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Who wouldn't like a movie with Gary Cooper? Or one with Claudette Colbert? Or one directed by Ernst Lubitsch? Who wouldn't like a comedy film written by Billy Wilder? The answers to all of these questions would be very few people (among movie fans who have seen a body of work dating from the early years of Hollywood). So, when one film has all of these great talents involved in it, well … most of us would probably expect the spectacular. Unfortunately, "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife" is far from the mark. It's not bad, but it's not much better than mediocre. I am a little surprised that a few reviewers scored it a 10. But, with leveler heads, others noted some of the things I did about this film. Oh sure, it has some witty lines and scenes. In the opening we see Michael Brandon (played by Cooper) looking in a store window in what looked to me to be Nice, France. A sign welcomes people in different languages. A sign in Spanish, German, French and English reads that that language is spoken here. A fifth line, after English, reads, "American understood." Then, as Brandon walks through the store, a salesman tries to interest him in one product after another. Walking beside him with a men's cologne bottle, the salesman says, "It's the contention of our management that the man who smells is a thing of the future." To which Brandon replies, "You ought to go a long way." But after that, the clever and funny lines are few and far between. The next scene in the store is where Brandon and Nicole De Loiselle (played by Claudette Colbert) meet. It is amusing but not hilarious. And, from then on, the attempts at humor are mostly one-liners with no response. Cooper is very stiff and wooden in this film, and there is absolutely no chemistry between these two stars. Colbert is Colbert – a very good actress at whatever she puts her heart into. But when the script is poor, as this one is, one actor is not going to save a film. The characters are not matched well, and the direction is lacking. One other reviewer commented on the weak premise for this film, and I agree. That could have been part of why the film flopped at the box office. But, moviegoers in that day knew good actors and directors and writers, and so they probably expected something very good. I give this five stars for Colbert's performance and that of the supporting cast, especially Edward Everett Horton as her movie father. David Niven's part was OK, but in a couple of scenes, he seemed to be an afterthought of the screenwriter. I can see how some viewers felt bored about half way into the film. It did stretch out far too much, probably losing much of the audience interest at the point. For some top Hollywood people of the time, Bluebeard would have to rank toward the bottom of their portfolios.

Gary Cooper believes in marriage. In fact, he believes in it so much, he has done it seven times. Will new amour Claudette Colbert be the eighth and last one? Only 90 minutes will tell.Wealthy banker Cooper is in France and while desperately searching for pajama tops (he never wears the bottoms) he meets pretty Claudette Colbert who agrees to purchase the bottoms. This hysterical sequence (featuring some very funny obscure character actors fretting over how buying only pajama tops will lead to another revolution) leads into an even funnier sequence where a prissy hotel manager (Franklin Pangborn) takes Cooper to a hotel suite where he finds impoverished marquis Edward Everett Horton in bed and proceeds to kick Horton out. Cooper learns that Colbert is Horton's daughter and proceeds to scheme to make her his 8th wife. Cooper is not really a blue-beard, but the story focuses on how Colbert works to change her new husband into the man she intends to spend the rest of her life with.This was not a critical hit in its day, but in reflection, it is very good to look at and filled with a lot of droll humor that makes it lightly funny and very fast moving. Cooper and Colbert are lovely to look at, while the "veddy" British David Niven does what he can with a mostly miscast role (Colbert's French suitor who discovers that Cooper is his employer). The rest of the cast is a character actor lover's dream. To see Pangborn and Horton together is to compare the art of how two different types of "prissy" men made their characters so totally different, yet are remembered as the golden age of Hollywood's most notable obviously gay characters. Warren Hymer is his typical dumb tough guy as the prizefighter Colbert hires to make Cooper jealous. The always wonderful Elizabeth Patterson adds delicious imperiousness to her matriarchal character. Finally, Herman Bing is always good for a laugh (with his over-the-top accent) as Cooper's private detective who isn't above switching allegiances to Colbert if it brings him another buck or two.While Ernest Lubitsch's line of films has some credits that are certainly greater than this piece of French Pastry, the film is actually quite better than its reputation has made it out to be. Post-depression and pre-World War II audiences loved these art decco slices of strudel, and no studio did it better or more than Paramount. Forget about the premise of a charming rogue getting his comeuppance and just enjoy the fluff. You'll find your funny bone tickled as much as the champagne bubbles tickle Colbert and Cooper's noses. And just remember---that isn't a tub. It's a wash basin!

I liked Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert in this. Cooper played Michael Brandon, an American multi-millionaire and Colbert was Nicole - a French woman of aristocratic background. They meet in a store in Paris while Michael is trying to buy pyjama tops without the bottoms (? - must be a thirties thing.) When the store refuses to sell them that way, Nicole steps in to buy the bottoms, and the two develop a romance. Unfortunately, just before their marriage, Nicole discovers that she's to be Michael's eighth wife - and she doesn't take kindly to the news, especially when he offers her a contract paying her for the inevitable divorce. Here's where the movie stopped working for me.From this point on, it became - to me at least - mean-spirited rather than funny. Yes, there continued to be amusing scenes, but they were all seemingly spiteful. In a way, this struck me as a milder version of something like "The War Of The Roses." Yes, there's more going on than meets the eye - as we discover when the movie finally comes to an end and Nicole's motivation becomes clear, but I still didn't find this an especially pleasant movie to watch in spite of the good performances from the two leads. (3/10)

Gary Cooper, (Michael Brandon) played the role as an American millionaire who had seven bad marriages, but always divorced his wife's with plenty of money to live on. Michael is in Paris on business and goes into a French Department Store to buy a pair of pajama tops and the sales people refuse to sell him just the tops, he has to buy the bottoms or there is no sale. Nicole DeLoiselle, (Claudette Colbert) listens to this conversation and offers to buy the bottom of these pajama's. Michael becomes very interested in Nicole and they have occasion to meet and go on dates. It is not too long before Michael proposes marriage to Nicole and she is very taken back with his request for marriage since she really does not know him very well. However, once she finds out she is going to become the Eighth wife of Michael she begins to change her mind and this story becomes quite entertaining and funny. Don't miss this film, it is great entertainment by great veteran actors. Enjoy.