This is not a great film but it is entertaining and frothy. Rene Clair, like Jean Renoir, fled France for the United States and made movies in Hollywood. But Renoir concentrated on serious films, like "This Land is Mine" and "The Southerner". Clair made comedies, of which this and "I Married a Witch" were the best ones. In "Flame of New Orleans" Clare tackled a sex romp in the Big Easy of the 1840s. He succeeds in capturing the charm of the great town, and (with maybe one or two exceptions) produced the best film about New Orleans and it's Gallic flavor.<br /><br />Marlene Dietrich is an international adventuress (we subsequently realize she has been as far from New Orleans as St. Petersburg, Russia). She is as sexually alluring as ever, and has got the pleasant attention of Roland Young a rich banker. While Young woos her she also attracts the attention of ship captain Bruce Cabot, who is more to her taste in form, but not in terms of money. She plays her game with Cabot and gets him into debt. Meanwhile she pursues a willing Young, only to first find a number of men who knew her in the past, and then find that Cabot is getting into her hair. So she tries to create a twin cousin situation. But this complicates the situation even more.<br /><br />The character actors like Mischa Auer (frantically trying to retrieve his top hat before he gets challenged to a duel), or Melville Cooper (cornered by his loveless marriage wife, and ending up being unexpectedly blunt), or even Shemp Howard (who has the freshest wine cellar in New Orleans) have excellent moments to shine in this film's comedy. It is a marvelously funny confection which I recommend