Playwright Monsieur Feydeau is staying in the Parisian Hotel Paradiso. He needs to write a new play, but has writer's block. He takes the opportunity to observe his fellow guests: Monsieur Boniface, henpecked by his domineering wife, and Marcelle, the beautiful but neglected wife of Henri, a building inspector. Henri is sent to the hotel to investigate rumours of ghosts (which turn out to be caused by drains). However, the hotel is the trysting place of Marcelle and Boniface, who are having an affair.
In the 'by-the-hour' hotel, there are two husbands and one wife, plus Henri's nephew and Boniface's maid, who are also having an affair. Marcelle and Boniface's affair is severely compromised (not least by a police raid). All these events provide Feydeau with the material for his play, which becomes the succès fou of the next season.
Writing for The New York Times, Thomas Lask said "essentially, 'Hotel Paradiso' is a bedroom farce in the old tradition, and the picture is based on a frothy example of the genre by a master, Georges Feydeau, who worked with Maurice Desvallieres on the play. That kind of exercise calls for a crispness, a propulsive energy that Mr. Glenville's film has only fitfully. The result is that the picture is charming when it should be brisk, amiable when it should be ridiculous."[3] However, he praised the cast, particularly Guinness.[3]
