Another film version of Topaze, this one made in the original French was also released that year, starring Louis Jouvet in the title role.

Prof. Auguste A. Topaze (John Barrymore), an honest, naive chemist and schoolteacher at the Stegg Academy in Paris, loses his job when he refuses to accede to a demand by the Baroness de La Tour-La Tour to alter the grades of her bratty son, Charlemagne.

Upon meeting and listening to the sincere remarks of Topaze, the baron, head of the La Tour Chemical Works, decides to employ him as a scientific front for his phony curative water.

At the Stegg Academy graduation, Topaze, who has also garnered the romantic attention of Coco, is to award the prize, which he is told is to go to his former nemesis, Charlemagne de La Tour-La Tour.

Mordaunt Hall said "[I]t is an agreeable and effective film, and Mr. Barrymore lends no little artistry to the rôle of the benign Professor Auguste Topaze, a part played with rare skill on the stage by Frank Morgan.