Love Me Tonight

Rating:
Summary: Like champagne
Review: Like champagne, the musical comedy "Love Me Tonight", is light, bubbly, and improves with age. It's hard to fathom that this delightful movie was made over 70 years ago because it looks and feels fresh and contemporary.

Rouben Mamoulian directs with verve complemented by the vibrant black and white photography of Victor Milner. Master composer Richard Rodgers creates lovely, wistful melodies that stay with you. And the erudite lyricist Lorenz Hart infuses his sophisticated lyrics with wit, charm, and innuendo.

The two leads, Maurice Chevalier as the smitten tailor, and Jeanette MacDonald, as the royal object of Chevalier's affection, have seldom been more appealing.

Here's a toast to the delectable artists who cultivated the sparkling, effervescent classic "Love Me Tonight".

Rating:
Summary: Love This Film!
Review: Long absent from home video titles, 1932's LOVE ME TONIGHT has finally been released on dvd in all of its glory - and a wonderfully pristine print it is too! There are enough superlatives already published about this film and its creators, director Rouben Mamoulian and Rogers & Hart, that I don't need to think up new ones - Leonard Maltin calls it simply "one of the best musicals ever made" - but it's worth observing that Hollywood never made another musical even remotely like it until the recent CHICAGO. (OK, let's credit 1933's HALLELUJAH I'M A BUM, a notorious flop.)

Even in some of our most beloved musicals - such as SINGIN' IN THE RAIN - let's admit it, the story stops dead in its tracks to perform a musical number. At best, the number is usually redundant of information already provided to the viewer. Rogers and Hart told LOVE ME TONIGHT's story through its musical numbers, a seemingly obvious approach that films have steadfastly ignored all these decades except for CHICAGO where LMT's approach seems to have been rediscovered. Perhaps the quality that distinguishes LMT from later and better-known musicals is its lack of pretension, indeed, its playfulness. Despite the film's imagination and continual inventiveness, it is never impressed with itself (oh, that the "great" MGM musicals of the 1950s had this quality!).

The only problems I found are minor and not the fault of the film itself. There seems to be a slight rumble on the soundtrack when the scene is in silence, most notably in the famous opening sequence of Paris at dawn. I also wondered why some slight speckling was not removed from the opening titles. These two items aside, Kino Video did a great job and provided some great supplemental material including a thoughtful essay by Miles Kreuger. If you have any interest in movie musicals, LMT is "must" viewing!

Rating:
Summary: One of the bonus features is worth the price alone
Review: My first viewing of this film was a great disappointment. I expected another Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy film, with Chevalier substituting for Eddy. And I emphatically did not like the film. Then I viewed the film a second time, this time with the play-by-play voice-over analysis by Miles Kreuger, which comes as a extra bonus on this DVD. Suddenly I was seeing the film in a completely different light, and absolutely loving this film. This DVD is an absolute gem, and one of the best things about it is the intelligent and articulate insights provided by Miles Kreuger, not confined to this film alone but applying to the cinema world at large in the early 30s. It is as if a film critic from the 1930s had come back to life, as if he had actually been on the sets during the filming (because he's talked to those who were). Kreuger's commentary alone is worth the price of this DVD. After seeing this film for the first time, you must go back and see it again through Miles Kreuger's eyes.

Rating:
Summary: WOW! [X 100!]
Review: Rouben Mamoulian's LOVE ME TONIGHT is the finest impersonation of Ernst Lubitsch in the history of Hollywood. It helped that he borrowed two of Lubitsch's most widely used stars. Jeanette MacDonald had appeared in Lubitsch's MONTE CARLO in 1930 (with the marvelous Jack Buchanan, who is best know for his great role in THE BAND WAGON) and Maurice Chevalier had appeared in 1931's THE SMILING LIEUTENANT, and the appeared together in THE LOVE PARADE of 1929 and ONE HOUR WITH YOU earlier in 1932 (they would appear together again in Lubitsch's superb THE MERRY WIDOW in 1934 in one of the last great comedies before the Code). If Mamoulian doesn't quite match Lubitsch in the latter's unsurpassed magic with the camera, he nonetheless more than equals him in his sense of play, of class conflict, and impish sense of mischief.

But in one regard he completely surpasses Lubitsch: Mamoulian was able to work with songs the likes of which Lubitsch was never able to. The film is filled with great songs by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart. The score is so good that songs that would normally be the finest in a musical, like "Mimi" and "Love Me Tonight" are completely overshadowed by two of the greatest songs that the legendary team wrong: the waltz-like "Lover" (sung by Jeanette MacDonald in a carriage) and the almost epic "Isn't It Romantic?" Rogers was one of the greatest composers the American stage or cinema has seen, but as fine as his music is in these two songs, Hart just might be a tad better. The lyrics are simply astonishing. Take these from "Lover," which are closer to poetry than to mere song lyrics: Lover, when I'm near you/ And I hear you speak my name/ Softly, in my ear you/ Breathe a flame. The lyrics, on the other hand, of "Isn't It Romantic?" are cleverly nonchalant, many of the lines mere vowels as the singers hum rather than sing. Later versions "cleaned up" the lyrics, but in the movie the rough, almost unfinished quality of the lyrics enhances their appeal. It begins in Paris with Maurice Chevalier singing in his shop (with marvelous use of mirrors), and the tune leaving the shop on the lips of a customer, only to be passed onto a cab driver, from him to a fare who is a composer, on from him to a troop of soldiers marching in the countryside, and from them to a gypsy violinist who is overheard by Jeanette MacDonald in her chateau, where the song concludes. It is a breathtaking performance.

There is so much nonchalant fun in this film! For instance, a marvelous conversation between C. Aubrey Smith and Charles Butterworth in a stable, with a horse's head firmly wedged between them. Or the remarkably humorous fox hunt.

This is a must-see film for anyone who loves classic cinema or pre-code musical comedies. It is almost impossible to surpass in terms of cast, music, camera work, or humor. Love it tonight.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece from the early days of the sound film
Review: Rouben Mamoulian's LOVE ME TONIGHT is the finest impersonation of Ernst Lubitsch in the history of Hollywood. It helped that he borrowed two of Lubitsch's most widely used stars. Jeanette MacDonald had appeared in Lubitsch's MONTE CARLO in 1930 (with the marvelous Jack Buchanan, who is best know for his great role in THE BAND WAGON) and Maurice Chevalier had appeared in 1931's THE SMILING LIEUTENANT, and the appeared together in THE LOVE PARADE of 1929 and ONE HOUR WITH YOU earlier in 1932 (they would appear together again in Lubitsch's superb THE MERRY WIDOW in 1934 in one of the last great comedies before the Code). If Mamoulian doesn't quite match Lubitsch in the latter's unsurpassed magic with the camera, he nonetheless more than equals him in his sense of play, of class conflict, and impish sense of mischief.

But in one regard he completely surpasses Lubitsch: Mamoulian was able to work with songs the likes of which Lubitsch was never able to. The film is filled with great songs by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart. The score is so good that songs that would normally be the finest in a musical, like "Mimi" and "Love Me Tonight" are completely overshadowed by two of the greatest songs that the legendary team wrong: the waltz-like "Lover" (sung by Jeanette MacDonald in a carriage) and the almost epic "Isn't It Romantic?" Rogers was one of the greatest composers the American stage or cinema has seen, but as fine as his music is in these two songs, Hart just might be a tad better. The lyrics are simply astonishing. Take these from "Lover," which are closer to poetry than to mere song lyrics: Lover, when I'm near you/ And I hear you speak my name/ Softly, in my ear you/ Breathe a flame. The lyrics, on the other hand, of "Isn't It Romantic?" are cleverly nonchalant, many of the lines mere vowels as the singers hum rather than sing. Later versions "cleaned up" the lyrics, but in the movie the rough, almost unfinished quality of the lyrics enhances their appeal. It begins in Paris with Maurice Chevalier singing in his shop (with marvelous use of mirrors), and the tune leaving the shop on the lips of a customer, only to be passed onto a cab driver, from him to a fare who is a composer, on from him to a troop of soldiers marching in the countryside, and from them to a gypsy violinist who is overheard by Jeanette MacDonald in her chateau, where the song concludes. It is a breathtaking performance.

There is so much nonchalant fun in this film! For instance, a marvelous conversation between C. Aubrey Smith and Charles Butterworth in a stable, with a horse's head firmly wedged between them. Or the remarkably humorous fox hunt.

This is a must-see film for anyone who loves classic cinema or pre-code musical comedies. It is almost impossible to surpass in terms of cast, music, camera work, or humor. Love it tonight.

Rating:
Summary: Or maybe 10 Stars
Review: This is a movie which I taped each time it was on TV until I got the very best print I could. I watched it religiously 2 or 3 times a year. Always in awe. The music, the acting, the production are all breath-takingly spectacular. This movie is unforgettable, one of those films that one's own memory (to say nothing of musicals made for the next 25 years) quotes from incessantly.

Fabulous to have it on DVD!