(80 mins.) Released 1930-10-25
Director: Paul L. Stein
Stars: Jeanette MacDonald, John Garrick, Joe E. Brown, Zasu Pitts
musical, romance
originally posted 27 Sep 2017 03:09
It's a Friml operetta, an independent production, an aged print (is the soft contrast from age, or by design?). The music matches the melodrama. The "exterior" sets are worthy of original Star Trek, but since it's arctic, everything is pure white. I wonder if one of the major studios could have made it look better.
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Instead of having a major pair and a minor pair of lovers, we have a quadrangle (3 men and Jeanette), and they all sing. Joe E. Brown (On With the Show!) and Zasu Pitts (Monte Carlo with JM) might have been the minor couple, although they are not young, but she vanishes from the story about halfway through. Then again, maybe it's too soon in movie musicals to have locked in the convention of dual romances.
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A hair's breadth from a 5. Sort of fascinating for the bad special effects. Chaplin's encounter with the bear in The Gold Rush (1925) was about as realistic - and funnier. But this movie is not attempting comedy, and that's a shame with JM and the "minor couple" on hand.
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Schenk Prod., dir. Stein; 6-
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OK, weird trivia connecting Whoopee! and Lottery: JM's older sister finished her career playing Grandmama on The Addams Family (1964-6); she had 94 movie roles, mostly uncredited. And Jackie Coogan, Betty Grable's first husband, played Uncle Fester. Plus, I mentioned Chaplin here; Coogan was the Kid in Chaplin's The Kid (1921). So FAH! on 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.
