When Claire Mathewson's (Thelma Todd) husband Stephen (Cary Grant) comes back unexpectedly from the 1932 Summer Olympics, where he was supposed to compete in the javelin throw, he discovers the train tickets for a romantic Venice getaway she has planned with her lover Gerald (Roland Young).

Gerald's friend, Bunny (Charles Ruggles), lies and says that the tickets are actually for Gerald and his wife. With Stephen still suspicious, Gerald must find a fake wife to go to Venice with him. He tries to hire the actress Chou-Chou (Claire Dodd), but since her boyfriend is a jealous man, she gives the job to out-of-work Germaine (Lili Damita), who needs the 2,000 franc fee to keep from starving. At first, Gerald thinks she is too demure, but she soon convinces him that she can pretend to be a glamorous wife.

The two couples go to Venice. Bunny, attracted to Germaine, decides to join them. On the train, Stephen questions Gerald and Germaine about how they met. When they arrive in Venice, Claire quickly becomes jealous, as both Stephen and Gerald seem fascinated by Germaine. Claire eventually demands that Gerald send Germaine away immediately, so he orders her to leave the next day. Meanwhile, a drunken Bunny climbs a ladder into Germaine's bedroom and offers to take her away. After she turns down his offer, he falls into a canal on his way out and is apprehended by two policemen. Stephen believes he hears a burglar and goes to her room to investigate. The two are then caught in a seemingly compromising position by Gerald and Claire. However, Bunny reappears and explains what really happened. Her love for her husband rekindled, Claire breaks off her affair with Gerald. Germaine reveals to Gerald that she is not in fact Chou-Chou and decides to return to Paris, but Gerald catches up to her in a gondola and asks her to marry him.

A 1932 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Frank Tuttle, based on the 1923 play, "Pouche" by Henri Falk and René Peter, and the 1925 English-language adaptation, "Naughty Cinderella" written by Avery Hopwood, starring Lili Damita, Charles Ruggles, Roland Young, Thelma Todd, and Cary Grant in his film debut.

Cary Grant disliked his role, believing that a man accepting the unfaithfulness of his wife so calmly was unbelievable. After seeing this Paramount Picture, he decided to quit the movie industry. His friend, Orry-Kelly, talked him out of it. Even in a fifth-billed role, Grant demonstrated the wit and charm that would make him the screen's top romantic comedian. But when the film was made, it was primarily intended as a showcase for the French Damita's exotic charms and the comic talents of its leading men, comic character actors Charles Ruggles and Roland Young.

The story started out as the 1923 French play Pouche, by Rene Peter and Henri Falk. Avery Hopwood adapted it as Naughty Cinderella for Broadway, where it starred Irene Bordoni. Paramount bought the film rights and brought it to the screen once before as "Good and Naughty" (1926), a vehicle for silent-screen sensation Pola Negri.

Like many Paramount films made in the early '30s, This reflects a distinctly European sensibility. Director Ernst Lubitsch's sophisticated comedies and innovative musicals (the latter influenced by the films of French director Rene Clair) were among the studio's most acclaimed hits, so naturally similar movies sought to capture their unique style. This opens with an orchestra (contemporary sources credit Duke Ellington and His Band) warming up under the titles.

When Todd loses her skirt in an altercation with a taxi door at the film's start, it turns into a song echoed through the streets of Paris as the story spreads. Later, the "double date" in Venice leads to a variety of risqué scenes as the three men court Damita, suggesting to the audience that more is going on than mere flirtation and is occurring off screen. This did not escape the censors' notice. The Production Code Administration objected to the scene in which Todd loses her skirt, and warned that Young's reaction to the accident suggested that even more had been exposed. That got through, though pressure from the Italian government led Paramount to cut a few comedy bits featuring an ethnic stereotype of Italian policemen. When stricter Production Code enforcement arrived in 1935, Paramount won permission to re-issue the film after excising a scene in which Damita undressed behind a screen.

The multi-lingual Damita came to the U.S. in the early days of talking films under contract to Sam Goldwyn. But, he had little for her to do, lending her to other studios through most of her career. She seemed an ideal match for Paramount's European-style productions, starring Marlene Dietrich and Maurice Chevalier. Despite her talents and beauty, Damita never achieved wide popularity among the movie-going public, eventually becoming more famous for her tempestuous marriage to swashbuckling star Errol Flynn. She retired from the screen in 1937.