Thursday, June 18, 2009

Love Me Yesterday, Love Me Tomorrow

Love Me Tonight (1932)
directed by Rouben Mamoulian
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the Albuquerque Public Library

Maurice Chevalier, playing a tailor, breaks into song. His customer carries the tune to “Isn’t it Romantic?” out of the shop, where a cab driver takes over. The cabby’s fare hums it to the train station; a group of soldiers on their way to the country keep up the melody. Watching the soldiers’ maneuvers, a gypsy boy brings his violin back to camp, where the refrain drifts over the forest to Jeanette MacDonald, watching the moon from her uncle the Duke’s castle.

In my book and in my heart, that’s four cravats that can’t be broken, complete with three witches – or at the very least, aunts – brewing potions for fainting spells in the castle watchtower. Mamoulian keeps enough holdovers from the Lubitsch musicals that precede Love Me Tonight to ensure that one more superficial European setting never trumps old-fashioned Hollywood sex appeal, street comedy, and razzle-dazzle. And I love Jeanette MacDonald enough to concede that she was right to be jealous of Myrna Loy, who never matched her comedic timing and early-career ingénue appeal better than she does here.