Premier Rendez-vous (1941)

A young girl (Danielle Darrieux) in an orphanage corresponds with a pen pal that she found through an ad in the newspaper. She falls in love with the romantic stranger named Pierre but when she arranges a meeting, she is met by an older man (Fernand Ledoux), who's plain looking and rather shy. He states he is a stand in for the real Pierre (Louis Jourdan), who is his ward. Directed by Henri Decoin, this is an innocuous romantic comedy with some unsavory aspects to it. The older man played by Ledoux practically forces the young girl to come home with him against her will, Jourdan's character seems shallow and unworthy of the girl but even Darrieux's naive orphan comes across as a bit of a ninny. The film lacks the charm that a romcom needs to make it work and Darrieux at age 25 isn't quite believable as a young teen in an orphanage. It's no better or no worse than the many mindless youth romcoms that Hollywood has churned out for years. I did laugh out loud when a spinster announces, "You'll enter over my dead body!" although I'm not sure that double entendre was intentional or my mind was in the gutter. With Daniel Gelin and Jean Tissier.