This is a story, set in Paris, about a con artist falling in love, resolving to reform, and then despairing about his chances and moving on. William Powell plays the con artist, and his love interest is Carole Lombard who plays Mary Kendall, daughter of a wealthy business owner from the U.S. But, Powell isn't just any con artist. He's a master who runs a sophisticated yet simple scheme. Wynne Gibson plays an accomplice of Powell's Michael Trevor. As Irene Hoffa, she carries a torch for him. She's jealous and is torn by love-hate feelings for the guy. Some other supporting cast do their parts well. The story is just a version of many others one has read, heard or watched on film. Bad guy meets girl, falls in love and goes straight. I don't mean to make it sound like a trifle, but something isn't quite right about this film. It's supposed to be a romantic drama. There is no chemistry between the two leads. Powell shows no emotions at all. His character has no life. He just seems to mope from one scene to another – head down and eyes toward the floor. It seems like Powell hasn't yet shaken that acting method from the silent films he made. He is capable of much better as we see in his many later films. The script isn't very good and the direction is lacking. It's a fair film for folks who enjoy Powell and Lombard movies. But it's nowhere near the considerable repertoire of very good films made by either star. I rate it six stars mostly for the good look it provides of some of the top supporting cast actors from the first decade of the talkies.

In what seems to be a promising drama of rich and poor, noble and naughty Americans in Paris, William Powell and Carole Lombard rise above a dull screenplay and add class to a mediocre project. Powell is a society blackmailer, an American novelist down on his luck who sets his money hungry sights on the niece of one of his victims. That lovely lady is Lombard, probably the most likable young actress every in the movies. Her natural beauty and charm betray her 21 years, making her a delightful surprise among a list of barely legal thespians who seem artificial on screen. Lombard has much chemistry with the older Powell, and in this (their first of three films), the age difference is one that never distracts. Powell's seemingly not so noble rogue is hiding a big heart that only hardens when forced by his jealous ex-lover (Wynne Gibson), his partner in crime that can't believe that Powell would actually fall in love with Lombard.Guy Kibbee is Lombard's wealthy fun-loving uncle who longs to see her with the more age suitable Lawrence Gray, while veteran sleazy portrayer George Chandler is Gibson's equally nefarious cohort. Viewers will find the film delightful as far as the performances, sets and costumes are concerned, but the dull dialog isn't as snappy as other similar pre-code films. A brief view of minor characters (wealthy older male and female American with obvious "working" members of the opposite sex) is amusing, particularly the stout woman's reaction when her gigolo suddenly runs off after a warning from Powell. At 71 minutes long, you'd think this would fly by, but for some reason, it seems longer and is therefore a dull disappointment. Powell and Lombard don't get much of an opportunity to utilize their tremendous comic talents, but on occasion, the magic does slip out (with some nasty dialog crispy sneered by the underrated Gibson) and for that, this is worth a viewing.

About the only thing that this pre-Code drama is significant for is that William Powell and Carole Lombard met on the set of Man Of The World and were married shortly thereafter. They did another film while both were at Paramount, Ladies Man and then were divorced with Powell leaving Paramount for Warner Brothers and a short stint there. Neither of these films is anything close to that third film they did, My Man Godfrey.Powell along with Wynne Gibson and George Chandler has a nice little racket going in Paris. A former reporter he prints a newspaper if you can call it that of gossip distributed among visiting Americans. But for a consideration he'll make sure the item never gets printed. We have a political blogger in my area who actually does the same thing, so this racket I know well.But problems ensue when he actually falls for visiting American tourist Carole Lombard who is a niece of Guy Kibbee whom Powell has already put the bite on. Bill Powell was at a crossroads in his career, during the silent era he mostly played villains, that clipped mustache of his was guarantor of those kind of parts. Here he is a rat, but a rat with a conscience. How that plays out you have to watch the film for.Powell and Lombard are good, but Wynne Gibson as a woman who knows the score in life gets all the acting kudos in Man Of The World. She should have done a film called Women Of The World.Man Of The World is not a classic like My Man Godfrey, but Powell and Lombard do have good chemistry. Of course they had better chemistry once they were divorced.

Paramount had a specialty of sex comedies set in Paris, France from the mid-twenties until the Production Code closed them down in 1935. At that point, the Screwball Comedy arose.As long as they were doing comedies in Paris, they did a couple of straight programmers set there too. In this one, William Powell plays an American in Paris who, while trying to write, makes a living by an interesting blackmail scam -- I've never heard of it before. This movie, with a script by Herman J. Mankiewicz and a good cast has a chance of being very good. But except for William Powell, as always, charming, and Guy Kibbee's emphatic muddleheadedness, director Richard Wallace seems to be unable to raise a decent performance. Carole Lombard keeps threatening to disappear into the background, Lawrence Grey seems impossibly callow, and Wynne Gibson seems to be reading her speeches phonetically off a blackboard.One wants to like this movie and there are a few moments when it appears on the brink of turning into something very interesting, like the scene over onion soup at 1 AM, but then it turns into another pointless costume change.William Powell's career was stuck at this point: he was trying to make the change from screen villain to leading man, but couldn't quite get the right vehicles. He would leave Paramount for Warner's until he struck gold at Metro in 1934. But he always remained a character actor, capable of small or broad performances that would delight the audiences. It's a pity he's not strong enough to carry this movie by himself.