1h 24min | Fantasy, Musical, Romance, Comedy | 9 July 1942
Directors: W.S. Van Dyke (as Maj. W.S. Van Dyke II), Roy Del Ruth (uncredited)
Stars: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Edward Everett Horton
Ernst Matray ... dance director (as Ernest Matray)
Jeni Le Gon ... dance coach: "A Twinkle In Your Eye" boogie woogie dance (uncredited)
Adapted from the 1938 Rodgers & Hart stage musical with 5 of their songs, plus 2 more 1942 songs by Rodgers, and 6 by Stothart, and some classical arias are listed on the Soundtracks page.
One of my favorite moments is JM & Binnie Barnes doing the boogie woogie dance coached by Jeni Le Gon at about 70 min. JM is especially good at it.
The fantastic nature of the film, with JM in the second role as angel Brigita, is pointed out several times when we get brief cuts to NE on his couch sleeping, often fitfully to mirror the action in the dream.
The last scene of the dream has JM dancing/singing a hula. I wonder if that was part of the original play, or if we get more Hawaiian sequences/references after Dec 7.
Anne Jeffries is listed in IMDb's onscreen credits as Polly; confirmed that she's listed in the after-movie title card. I could not find her, even after looking at a photo from a 1943 film where she looks like herself, albeit younger.
The title song is repeated often, and the one bar of the title itself gets to be grating. Elsewhere (perhaps the same song), there is a brief sequence of notes that reminds me of Lady in the Dark, a musical debuting on B'way somewhat later than this film's antecedent.
This film also reminds me of the film Love Me Tonight ('32), especially when one of the Paris couturiers here is an actor (composer in a taxi) from the early sequence passing Isn't It Romantic around town in LMT. Both films are Rodgers & Hart, but other R&H films in between have not reminded me of LMT. The more bizarre reaction: I felt that this one was too stuffy, and then realized JM was in both. Which means the stuffiness is either part of the acting/directing, or needs to be pinned to NE (b. 1901). And Maurice Chevalier (b. 1888) would have filled NE's playboy Count role well. (MC has no IMDb actor credits from 1939-47, and I believe he was in France during the war.)
Really tough to decide between 6 & 7. We have a lot of music, it's a fantasy, which I think is an especially good companion to the Musical genre, but it's somehow too reserved (stuffy)/dignified.
MGM, dir. Van Dyke & Del Ruth; 6+
