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066: Love Me Tonight (1932) - released 8/17/06; viewed 6/17/06.
DOUG: We put this movie on our agenda because of its song, "Isn't it Romantic?" which made the AFI's Top 100 Songs list. I'm rather glad we did, since it's the first real musical on the odyssey. It's also an excellent look at the great romancin' French gentleman actor Maurice Chevalier. It's the first time we've seen Chevalier for real (we caught a glimpse of his picture in the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business). In researching Chevalier and the Marx Brothers, I found that none of the brothers is tall enough to pass himself off as Chevalier. We have here a film about the old class boundary: Young heiress Jeanette (Jeanette MacDonald) suffers from fainting spells and overprotective relatives, and needs a husband (hey, it's a 30's romance, go with it) her own age, but her Dad keeps trying to set her up with these rich old geezers. Fortunately, along comes Maurice, a tailor who is mistaken for a baron and falls in love with Jeanette. I love, LOVE the scene with Maurice and Jeanette under the tree, when they're telling each other they love each other. There's a lot of odd whimsy in the movie; What's with the scene where Jeanette's aunts are making that witch's brew to cure her fainting spells? Myrna Loy pops up (two years before The Thin Man), and she's quite a pleasure, but we don't see nearly enough of her. Whenever I need to remember what a French accent sounds like, I can just think of Chevalier's voice. If you'd like to have an idea of who Maurice Chevalier was, you might as well start with Love Me Tonight.
KEVIN: Five years after the "birth" of sound film and Hollywood has finally established a mastery of music in film. I looooooooooooooooved this movie. I give it 4 out of 5, only because it's not quite memorable enough to garner that fifth star. We have another case of mistaken identity as Maurice Chevalier plays a tailor who poses as a Baron. The first thing I noticed about Chevalier is that he has the best French accent ever. I can't wait to see more of him in Lubitsch's The Merry Widow. Chevalier was 43 at the time, but he doesn't look a day over 35. I enjoyed the randomness of the musical scenes, like in a scene straight out of MacBeth where Jeanette's aunts make a remedy for their niece's fainting spells. My favorite song was "Mimi" the way it's so sweet sounding, yet so very naughty. Director Rouben Mamoulian does some more cool stuff here that seems more at home in a musical than in Jekyll & Hyde. He uses close ups, superimposed images and other cool tricks to advance the emotion of the love story. He also makes every musical scene different. Such as the reprise of "Love Me Tonight" when we just see Maurice and Jeanette sleeping while the song plays and their voices profess their love for each other. Myrna Loy is a pleasure, except for the fact that she doesn't do anything! And for the record, the Marx brothers don't look like Maurice Chevalier.
Last film: Movie Crazy (1932). Next film: Blonde Venus (1932).
score 9/10
Cyke 20 January 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1577843/ |
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15-3-2021 04:57:13