(99 mins.) Released 1934-10-11
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Stars: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton, Marcel Vallée.
Albertina Rasch ... choreographer / dances directed by
comedy, musical, romance
originally posted 21 Oct 2017 01:01
Lubitsch + Chevalier + MacDonald, oh my! Now at MGM. Lyrics by Rodgers and Hart, to music by Franz Lehar. Set in 1885 in a small country between Austria-Hungary and Roumania (sic), with a similar plot to the operetta: the widow must marry inside her country so they don't lose her taxes, and that Danilo (MC) likes Maxim's. Otherwise, the story strays.
Enjoyable bits of dancing: the can-can (not Offenbach's music) with great skirts for the moves, a pseudo military number danced by women in mannish uniforms, and a manic waltz worthy of Madame Bovary (1949, also MGM, no dance credits in common).
This film has the scene Billy Wilder used to illustrate "The Lubitsch Touch" in an interview I can't cite: MC enters a woman's boudoir (we stay outside); her husband had just left. Husband realizes he hadn't donned his sword, so he returns, and comes back out with a sword. But the belt is too small to fit his waist (it is the lover's).
The MGM style of mis coming together, but I can't put my finger on what that means, and I can't credit anyone (except perhaps Lubitsch) for this. Thalberg produced some of the early stinkers on this list, and is dead in less than 2 years.
It feels a bit long at 1:39.
MGM, dir. Lubitsch; 7-
