The Girl from Maxim's

Made before Korda hit the big time with The Private Life of Henry VIII and the lavish Denham epics, this adaptation of a Feydeau farce impresses despite the budgetary constraints. With brother Vincent's meticulous art direction and Périnal's photography, Korda convincingly creates the ambience of hypocritical decadence that epitomises the 'gay nineties'. Maxim's, presided over by Day's cunningly quixotic coquette, becomes a palace of boisterous female exhibitionism where men pay for their pleasure by exposing themselves as fatuous ninnies. The brilliant farce-playing from snorting old buffer Grossmith, splutteringly pompous Henson, and the gnarled and knotty Lady Tree, completes the ingredients for a bold, elegant, visually exciting film.