Historically important in its own way because it was the first of the Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy teamings which earnt so much money for MGM. And while they're a team that's easy to mock there's no denying they work well together and had genuine chemistry, no doubt assisted by the fact they would occasionally sleep with each other in real life.
This has a solid, simple story which serves its purpose of going from song to song with a little romance: Jeannette runs away from France to escape a loveless marriage, pretends to be a maid and winds up in New Orleans (when it was still owned by France) where she is romanced by a rough soldier played by Nelson.
There are plenty of tunes including the undeniably catchy and much spoofed "Ah Sweet Mystery of Life", plus an excellent line up of support characters: Douglas Dumbrille (an imposing villain, as the person insisting Jeanette get married), Frank Morgan and Elsa Lanchester. Maybe I'm being over generous with the three star ratings I'm giving this films, but they achieve perfectly what they set out to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment