by Allan Fish
(USA 1932 80m) DVD1/2 (France only)
Oh, that Mitzi!
p Ernst Lubitsch d Ernst Lubitsch, George Cukor w Samson Raphaelson play “Only a Dream” by Lothar Schmidt ph Victor Milner ed William Shea m/ly Oscar Straus, Richard Whiting, Leo Robin art Hans Dreier cos Travis Banton
Maurice Chevalier (Dr André Bertier), Jeanette MacDonald (Colette Bertier), Genevieve Tobin (Mitzi Olivier), Charles Ruggles (Adolph), Roland Young (Professor Olivier), George Barbier (Police commissioner), Josephine Dunn, Richard Carle,
Whenever I think of this trademark Lubitsch soufflé, I recall a tale told by Leslie Halliwell when, the morning after its debut showing on British television in 1983, he discussed the film with a neighbour, who said they turned it off as they didn’t like Jeanette MacDonald’s acting. He observed, in recollection, how can one explain sunlight to a blind man?
What’s ironic is that the film hasn’t been seen on British TV in any form in two decades and until recently seeing it – as with his other pre-code masterpieces, The Smiling Lieutenant and Trouble in Paradise – was virtually impossible unless you either spotted a copy on ebay or emigrated to the US. It’s a story that Lubitsch knew well, for it was a reworking of his 1924 silent The Marriage Circle, and it concerns the romantic complications of Parisian doctor André Bertier. He’s married to Colette, he loves Colette, he’s crazy about Colette, but things start to take a turn for the worse when his wife informs him that her best school friend, Mitzi, is on the way to visit. (Suffice it to say that not since Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp has there been a more treacherous ‘best friend’.) Mitzi immediately sets her sights on André, not realising her professor husband is onto her unfaithfulness and has employed a private detective to spy on her.
Looking back at Lubitsch’s films of this period feels almost like an archaeologist dusting off a pristine fossil. No director so suited the pre-Hays Code sophistication and naughtiness of Paramount than Ernst Lubitsch, and though One Hour may not quite be his best film, it certainly sums up his style of nudging musical comedy better than any other. One restoration, courtesy of the UCLA in the nineties, is a lovely tinted print, never better demonstrated than by the use of a moonlight blue tint to the night-time sequences, including a legendary sequence in the opening act where Chevalier and MacDonald are caught necking in the park – oh, for the days when Park Life had nothing to do with Damon Albarn and Phil Daniels. An officer exclaims “you can’t make love in public!”, only for Chevalier to retort “I can make love anywhere.” And when the officer replies with the expected “no, you can’t”, it’s MacDonald who responds this time, chirping “oh, but officer, he can.” They’re then escorted from the park to the only other place they can go, namely to the boudoir. A nudge-nudge sexy tone carried on throughout the film, as when a deadpan Young observes of his blonde wife “when I married her, she was a brunette. Now I can’t believe a word she says.” My favourite moment, however, has to be when Chevalier returns home, presumably having been unable to resist joining Mitzi in bed, and turns to the audience – as he does throughout the film – and asks the male half “I ask you, what would you do?” and then, after a suitable pause, says “that’s what I did, too.”
With gorgeous visual contributions from past-masters Banton, Dreier and Milner – all Paramount mainstays – and wonderful rhyming music and lyrics, it would nonetheless not work were it not for the style with which the actors perform, in a way long since lost in the mists of time. It’s very much a prototype Chevalier performance, while MacDonald matches him line for line and glance for glance, Tobin has her finest hour as the incorrigible Mitzi and Ruggles and Young offer typically skilful comic portrayals. Forget the charges from fired director Cukor that Lubitsch’s comedies lacked feeling, for that’s being churlish and rather missing the point, while charges of datedness expose our era’s shortcomings, not those of the film. As Halliwell also observed, “as musical comedies go, this is so intimate that it whispers.”
How ‘One Hour With You’ made the Elite 70:
Sam Juliano’s No. 19 choice
Allan Fish’s No. 25 choice
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Writers/Founders
“With gorgeous visual contributions from past-masters Banton, Dreier and Milner – all Paramount mainstays – and wonderful rhyming music and lyrics, it would nonetheless not work were it not for the style with which the actors perform, in a way long since lost in the mists of time.”
Absolutely. It’s a wonderful film, my favorite of the Lubitsch musical comedies and a seminal work in the form by any barometer of measurement. It has charm, wit, catchy musical tunes (The title song is immortal) and a perfect mix that makes for the famed ‘Lubitsch touch.’ Chavalier is fabulous again. This is truly a fantastic review!
Yeah, great review. The anti MacDonald remark was interesting since she was far different in the Paramount movies than she was later at MGM. I think my favorite part of this film was Ruggles however, or at least he is who I remembered after it was over with his rampant hitting on Jeanette throughout.
However, the whole subplot where Chevalier ostensibly spends the night with Mitzi doesn’t do much for me. Having her flirt with him and such is okay, but him actually sleeping with her makes his character seem like a complete dick, especially for a light comedy that isn’t going for some double standard spiel a la The Divorcee. We’re just supposed to equate him cheating on her with her potentially fantasizing about another man…and I’m not quite sure what to think of that.
I’ll take Love Me Tonight and Trouble in Paradise over this one, though LMT isn’t a Lubitsch film.
Brian–
I would also take those two mega-masterpiece over this, but like you I am a big fan and applaud it’s deserved placement in this ‘Elite 70.’ Your essential issue there does make sense, though I guess it didn’t bother me as much.
Another awesome comment from you.
Alan, I’ve waited until your run of the three previous films in the countdown to leave a comment. Your writing in these posts is, as we all know by this point, superb. There’s a lot to be said for concision, especially when it gets right to the point and stays there. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Eddie Cantor in a film, although I know of him from brief excerpts and, of course, from his signature tune “Whoopee,” surely the most innocuous-sounding song about sex ever written! I can’t say that I find the little I’ve seen of his screen personality particularly appealing. (I don’t much like Danny Kaye either.) But your post on “Roman Scandals” did make the film seem pleasantly wacky. “A Nous la liberte” is for me one of those masterpieces that is as enjoyable as it is artful–as you put it, “a damn fine film”–and your post did it justice. I especially like the section where you discuss the thematic subtexts, serious points that are often overlooked amidst all the satirical levity and marvelous synthesis of action, dialogue, and music. I love both this film and “Le Million” and would be hard pressed to choose between them. Like you I admire the early musicals of Lubitsch, although I do prefer his later comedies. (I haven’t yet seen “Monte Carlo” although I’m planning to before long.) I must admit that I prefer the others I’ve seen to “One Hour with You.” But Chevalier’s mugging is delightful, and Lubitsch certainly knew how to establish a particular tone in these musicals and maintain it without flagging for the duration of the film.The Warners backstage musicals seem to get all the attention given to musicals of the early 30s, so it was good to see attention directed to less known films and especially to a foreign language (non-opera) musical.
Thanks, Finchy, if I had to pick a best piece of the three, I think OHWY is the best of the three, then RS and then A Nous, which is clearly the weakest.
Another incomparable comment from R.D. Finch, but in this instance I must say he is especially authoritative, as his THE MOVIE PROJECTOR reviews on early Clair rank among his masterpiece essays (“Breaking the Sound Barrier”) focuses on A NOUS LA LIBERTE and LE MILLION.
http://themovieprojector.blogspot.com/2009/03/ren-clair-breaking-sound-barrier.html
This was a great post, but then I adore “One Hour With You”, though I understand Brian’s reservations about Chevalier’s character. (Must be a European thing.)
But there’s so much to enjoy about the film, that I just love it.
Many years ago, in the pre-DVD era, the Chicago the Film Center of the Art Institute had a series of films featuring the UCLA restorations and they ran “One Hour With You”, complete with the tinting, to a packed theater of all ages. Huge, appreciative applause at the end and we all worked out smiling and happy and nodding to each other, like we were members of a special club.
I recall that Halliwelll anecdote as well but everyone in that theater that night was not like his neighbor.
That was obviously a great screening Kevin, and we are lucky and grateful to have that anecdote here under this review. Like you I must say that I too “adore” this film. It’s my favorite of his musical period, which also includes “The Merry Widow.”
I like this film, but The Love Parade a little more. But as you state in your review it’s an original work, even within the easy-to-confuse nature of the Lubitsch musical cycle. I think the quality of the music in this one is first-rate.
Frank–
I know you have always preferred THE LOVE PARADE, but at the end of the day it’s a very tough call. The music here is pure bliss!
Another great review, Allan. Just wondering how you, or anyone who has seen ‘The Marriage Circle’, feel it compares? I’ve just been reading a book (‘Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges’ by James Harvey, which is probably going to take me forever to get through since I have to keep pausing to watch films!) which says the silent film is the better of the two… anyway, there are a couple of clips from it at the TCM site.
The first one is of the taxi scene at the start and is very similar to the reworking in ‘One Hour With You’ – for anyone going to the site, there is a link over to the right to the second scene, of Mitzi’s attempt to seduce the doctor.
http://fan.tcm.com/_Marie-Prevost-and-Florence-Vidor-from-1924/video/1198754/66470.html?b=&createPassive=true
Great link Judy!!!
I do hope Allan gets back here to see this comment, as I think it’s vital. Alas I have not myself seen THE MARRIAGE CIRCLE, though I’d love too. And what a great volume there by James Harvey you’ve taken on. I must investigate that further, as there are subtle rumblings on the outer rim of the WitD fraternity that are whispering that a “Great comedy films of all time” countdown may be engineered for the spring. I won’t even give that though a second at present, what we all we have to do here now, but I’ll admit it’s enticing, as it’s the one major genre left that deserves comprehensive attention. But this is a fabulous link!
Thanks for the info, Allan – I didn’t realise it was on DVD. Sam, a comedy countdown sounds a daunting idea, though I would follow it with interest if anyone manages to draw it up.
“subtle rumblings on the outer rim”
What are we, a volcano?
I prefer OHWY to The Marriage Circle, but that is also an excellent film in its own right and easy to get hold of as it’s on R1 with Image. I have that copy myself.
I hate to sound immature, but every single time I scroll past that second poster, I think “What is Beavis doing on the Wonders sidebar?” Just for a moment.
The charm of the cast and Lubitsch is epitomised in this film’s title, and has been gently captured in Allan’s ‘recherche du temps perdu’. One hour with you, time spent in soulful and witty frivolity with dear friends, you are madly in love with Jeanette McDonald.
God, Lubitsch meets Proust, there’s a thought.
Touché. About as likely as Jean Paul Belmondo being mistaken for Jack Lemmon… or not?
I love Tony’s comment! It has the precise lightness of touch and tone that befits Lubitsch, and it rightly honors Jeanette MacDonald.