Claudette Colbert is Marilyn, "The Gilded Lily" in this 1935 film also starring Ray Milland and Fred MacMurray. Colbert plays a young woman who hangs out with a reporter friend, Peter, (MacMurray) as she waits to be swept off her feet. Enter Milland as Charles, a duke visiting the U.S. incognito. They fall in love, and he decides that he wants to marry her instead of his fiancée back in England. His father (C. Aubrey Smith) talks him into breaking up with the fiancé the honorable way: return to England, see her face to face, and then return to the states. Peter, who has no idea that Charles is Marilyn's dream man, gets wind of the royalty and blows their identity in the paper. Marilyn thinks Charles lied to her about his feelings and is simply returning to England to get married. When Peter realizes Marilyn fell for Charles, his paper does a scandal sheet-type job on Marilyn. Before she knows it, she's the '30s version of a Tiger Woods' girlfriend and launched into a singing career.
It's all very odd -- MacMurray acts like a total jerk, and Charles apparently assumes she's been sleeping with Peter and invites her for a weekend at an inn when she's in England doing her act. She really should have dumped both of them, but she chooses one instead.
Colbert is very beautiful, and this was a breakthrough role for MacMurray. Milland is very charming - he came up through the ranks slowly and can be seen uncredited in "The Man who Played God" in 1931.
Dated but pleasant, basically thanks to Colbert.
