oscaralbert Review of Beau Brummel

Beau Brummel (1924)

Talk about burning "The Beau's" bridges behind oneself . . .

[8/10 · 20 March 2014]

. . . Beau Brummel, world history's most well-known male fashion plate, doesn't recognize a good deal when he has it. Pimp to Britain's crown prince, dining nightly on the best English Haute Cuisine, being proffered a marriage proposal by his wealthy first and only love, "The Beau" throws all this away about 100 minutes into a two-hour story for an opportunity to feed his hedonistic side by going on a steady diet of the still-ballyhooed-today "French cooking." A scene or two later, Mr. Brummel (an actual historical figure) looks like a twin to Quasimodo (otherwise known as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"). This just goes to show you what happens when you give up the simple pleasures of English boiled dinner for such decadent-sounding gastronomical perversions as "Escargot," which actually consists of garden slime or snails or some such outrage against any stomach in its right mind. If Escargot was not enough to rob Mr. Brummel of his looks and mental faculties, "Foie Gras" no doubt pushed him over the edge. The concept behind Foie Gras is to force-feed ducks and geese to death with "mash," and then to force-feed men to death with the ducks and geese. Brummel was "king of the world" in his native land, but got French-fried six ways from Sunday once he crossed the Channel.