- After having faked his own death and escaped Seville, aging lothario Don Juan returns, only to find that he has been promptly forgotten; perhaps a raven-haired beauty can coax him back into business.
- What do women want? Don Juan is aging. He's arrived secretly in Seville after a 20-year absence. His wife Dolores, with whom he hasn't lived in five years, still loves him. He refuses to see her; he fears the life of a husband. She has bought his debts and will remand him to jail for two years if he won't come to her. Meanwhile, an impostor is climbing the balconies of Seville claiming to be Don Juan. When a jealous husband kills him, the real Don Juan sees a way to avoid jail and get some peace. He hides as Captain Mariano in a small town. After six months, he's ready to return to society. Can he measure up to the legend? Will women find him attractive? What about Dona Dolores?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
- Douglas Fairbanks makes his big-screen swan song with Korda's deliciously satiric deflation of the Don Juan myth. After having faked his own death and escaped Seville, the aging lothario returns, only to find that he has been promptly forgotten; perhaps Merle Oberon's raven-haired beauty can coax him back into business. Don Juan was a rare "talkie" for Fairbanks, and a shrewd poking at the actor's own persona.
- In the Spanish town of Seville, flowers are thrown to neglected women on balconies, spreading the rumor that the infamous womanizer, Don Juan, is in town. As husbands lock their wives indoors, a doctor advises the sickly Don Juan to visit fewer balconies. Don Juan is trying to escape his wife Dolores, who had him jailed for his debts. Although she only wants him to apologize for his infidelities, Don Juan is determined that Dolores will be the one woman he will resist. His servant, Leporello, is conniving with Dolores to turn his master toward quiet living and a diet of healthy food. When an imitator of Don Juan calls on him to learn the final trick of seduction, he reveals that he played "Don Juan" in town the night before. As Don Juan's attentions are regarded as good luck, two dancers, Antonita and Pepita, compete for him. Antonita claims victory when Don Juan pledges he did not kiss Pepita as she had been deceived by his imitator. Catching a ride home on a cabbage cart, the weary Don Juan begins to question whether a woman is worth even a three minute walk. Later, the imitator is killed in a duel with Don Alfredo, a jealous husband, and Don Juan decides to take advantage of the incident and pretend he is dead. He attends his own funeral, where dozens of ladies mourn the fact that they will never meet him. Then, Antonita and Pepita brawl over who was truly the lover of Don Juan. Using the name Captain Mariano, a soldier "retired from service," Don Juan takes a six-month vacation. Peddlers sell biographies of Don Juan to all the women, depicting him as a hero and a cad. Tiring of his sedate existence, Don Juan declares his true identity to a tavern wench, Rosita, only to be ridiculed. Later, he is attracted to a girl in a carriage and, after obtaining her castle address, climbs a wall to see her. Again his old lines fail; she merely wants him to convey a message to her lover and sends him into the rain. After Don Juan returns to his lodgings, the middle-aged proprietress of the inn proposes to him, causing him to remember suddenly that he is married. Don Juan goes home to Seville but is rejected by Antonita, who now favors a rich duke. Actors, actresses and a playwright quarrel as they prepare a drama about Don Juan. On opening night, Don Juan interrupts the performance to declare that he is alive, but is laughed at and told he is the twenty-third person to make such a claim. Even Dolores denies him, though she does take him home from the police station. As Leporello looks on, Dolores makes Don Juan return to her by climbing a ladder to her balcony. Upon reuniting, she tells him, "Every woman wants more than a husband. Every woman wants Don Juan for herself."
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Top Gap
By what name was The Private Life of Don Juan (1934) officially released in Canada in English?
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