Love Me Tonight deserves it.

st-shot

Maurice Chevalier turns on the the Gallic charm offensive while Jeanette hits the high notes in this highly entertaining musical comedy featuring the music of Rodgers and Hart, Love Me Tonight. Under the direction of Rouben Mamoulian and the watchful eye of the Breen office the film is filled with comical innuendo and suggestion wryly pulled off by the director and screenwriter's play on words and the overpowering guileless personage of Chevalier.

When Maurice (Chevalier) a tailor decides to collect on a debt owed him by a near do well aristocrat he crashes the family compound. He is persuaded by the deadbeat to impersonate one of their lineage in order to secure payment instead of getting them both tossed from the mansion. He is quickly besotted by Princess Jeanette who is less than thrilled with him at first but falls prey to his seductive ways before being jolted by the fact he is a commoner.

While Chevalier and Mc Donald duet delightfully throughout in song and patter (especially in a scene where he fits her for a riding outfit ) Mamoulian does a fine job of skewering the upper crust leisure class at play with some comic choreography and a supporting cast displaying a variety of snobbery, entitlement and a touch of pixalation. A trio of timid aunts scurry about fretting in unison, the family patriarch played by C. Aubrey Smith bangs out a stanza of Mimi, even the hired help gets in on the condescension.

As early sound musicals go Love Me Tonight remains one of the best with Chevalier at his peak and Mac Donald on the crest of hers. It has wit in addition to some wonderfully delivered tunes and in flashes, moments that foreshadow Rules of the Game seven years away. Above all though it is an excellent entertainment that nearly eighty years down the road still retains a fresh energy.

score 9/10

st-shot 4 April 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2408981/