Folies Bergère de Paris

Folies Bergère de Paris is a 1935 American musical comedy film produced by Darryl Zanuck for 20th Century Films, directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Maurice Chevalier, Merle Oberon and Ann Southern. At the 8th Academy Awards, the “Straw Hat” number, choreographed by Dave Gould, won the short-lived Academy Award for Best Dance Direction, sharing the honor with “I've Got a Feelin' You're Foolin'” from Broadway Melody of 1936.[1] The film, based on the 1934 play The Red Cat by Rudolph Lothar and Hans Adler, is a story of mistaken identity, with Maurice Chevalier playing both a music-hall star and a business tycoon who resembles him. This was Chevalier’s last film in Hollywood for twenty years, and reprised familiar themes such as the straw hat and a rendering of the French song "Valentine".[2] This is also the last film to be distributed by Twentieth Century Pictures before it merged with Fox Film in 1935 to form 20th Century Fox.

Folies Bergère de Paris
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Directed by	Roy Del Ruth
Produced by	William Goetz Raymond Griffith Darryl F. Zanuck
Written by	Jessie Ernst (adaptation) Bess Meredyth (screenplay) Hal Long (screenplay) Darryl F. Zanuck (contributing writer-uncredited)
Based on	The Red Cat by Rudolph Lothar and Hans Adler
Starring	Maurice Chevalier Ann Sothern Merle Oberon
Music by	Alfred Newman (uncredited)
Cinematography	J. Peverell Marley Barney McGill
Edited by	Allen McNeil Sherman Todd
Production company	Twentieth Century Pictures
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	February 22, 1935 (1935-02-22)
Running time	82 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Zanuck simultaneously produced a French-language version of the story, also directed by Roy Del Ruth, called L'homme des Folies Bergère. It stars Chevalier and Natalie Paley and Sim Viva.[3] Because that film was intended for the French market, they shot scenes showing chorus girls bare breasted. When censor Joseph Breen heard of it, he insisted that the Production Code be enforced even in a film destined for another country. The American Film Institute catalog site describes Zanuck's losing battle with the censors.[3]

The Red Cat, which was produced for the Broadway stage by Zanuck, ran for only 13 performances, but the studio benefited from four film adaptations.[4] [5] The third and fourth were in Technicolor. On the Riviera (1951), directed by Walter Lang, stars Danny Kaye, Gene Tierney and Corinne Calvet. Irving Cummings directed the 1941 adaptation, That Night in Rio, which stars Don Ameche, Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda.