by Allan Fish
(USA 1929 109m) DVD1
The one about the Frenchman and the farmer’s daughter
p Ernst Lubitsch d Ernst Lubitsch w Ernest Vajda, Guy Bolton play “The Prince Consort” by Leon Xanrof, Jules Chancel ph Victor Milner ed Merrill White m/ly Victor Schertzinger, Clifford Grey art Hans Dreier cos Travis Banton
Maurice Chevalier (Count Alfred Renard), Jeanette MacDonald (Queen Louise of Sylvania), Lupino Lane (Jacques), Lillian Roth (Lulu), Edgar Norton (Major-Domo),
I like to think that the one brilliant scene in Sofia Coppola’s powder-puff jukebox version of Marie Antoinette owed something to Ernst Lubitsch. Kirsten Dunst’s princess is awoke from her repose by her attendants, the senior ranking of whom pulls Marie’s nightdress over her head and leaves her sitting naked on the bed preparing to be dressed. Unfortunately, this ceremony is continually interrupted by increasingly high-ranking women who take precedence and, according to custom, must supersede in the act of dressing the princess, while poor Marie turns pink with cold. It’s a scene that Mervyn Peake would have loved, but also Ernst Lubitsch, that supreme skewerer of the idle aristocracy and their pointless rigmarole for ceremony’s sake.
Count Alfred Renard, a ladies’ man military attaché, is returned from service in his beloved Paris home to Sylvania. The country is ruled by a twenty-something queen who detests talk of marriage, yet clearly has an itch she wants scratching. She’s appalled and fascinated by the Count’s Parisian excesses, yet when events conspire to turn him into a candidate for Prince Consort she tries to bend him to her will.
The Love Parade is not in here merely as satire (though one has to love the scene where American tourists ignore the guide’s talk of the royal palace until he says how much it’s worth), however, but largely because of its historical import. Take the other talkies of 1929. Only one other – Mamoulian’s Applause – is really of worth, but there the star and director are undermined by some already tedious clichés and poor supporting turns. Yet in that year another musical, The Broadway Melody, won best picture. The Love Parade was nominated and didn’t win. One can only wonder what the voters were on? One has little reason to exist, the other is a thorough delight, not merely at home in the new world of the talkies but revelling in it as if it was not so much a brave new world as a return home. And it could be argued that one scene in particular takes that observation and acts as a perfect analogy for the same. Just as in Coppola’s later film, a young female aristo is reposing, having awoken, staring dreamily from her art-deco pillows. Her attendants come in to pay their respects and prepare her for the day. This begins with a bath, and MacDonald’s bare leg is seen dipping its toes into the water of her semi-sunken bath. Finally, her feet confirm it’s just right and she gets in to take her bath. Mere titillation, one might think, and certainly the scene is played out deliberately by Lubitsch so that the camera just avoids seeing MacDonald’s nipples (one can imagine the male members of the audience subconsciously rising in their chairs to see if they could look over the top of the bath). Yet Lubitsch himself could equally be seen to be dipping himself in the waters of talkies, and the notion could stretch to his studio, Hollywood and even the movies themselves. His film is thus a saucy bathe in new surroundings; other 1929 talkies leave one looking like a shrivelled prune, but after Parade one rather feels lighter than air, intoxicated with the possibilities of an entirely new medium. He’s helped by Paramount’s trademark visual aesthetics, reeking sophisticated elegance through every see-through negligee and tuxedo, and by his cast. Chevalier offers his first trademark naughty Parisian and MacDonald is so sexy as to make the fans of those excruciating Nelson Eddy pictures feel like Saint Jeanette has been drinking too much altar wine. And then there’s the innuendo-laden dialogue and visual symbolism; how can one not like a film which opens with a man surprised by his lover’s husband shot by the cuckold with blanks from his gun? Or the wife showing a garter isn’t hers by lifting up her dress to show her pair in place.
How Love Parade made the ‘Elite 70’:
Greg Ferrara’s No. 10 choice
Pat Perry’s No. 25 choice
Allan Fish’s No. 30 choice
Sam Juliano’s No. 30 choice
Word economy at it’s absolute finest!
Yes, this deserved the prize in 1929 as it’s an utter delight, and a remarkable fusion of sound, music and dialogue all executed with that famed Lubitsch dexterity. The integration was revolutionary, the upbeat songs a real joy and Chavalier and the lovely Jeanette MacDonald at the top of their game.
“After ‘Parade’ one rather feels lighter than air.” That’s a perfect description of the effect of this film on the viewer. Lubitsch’s early sound musicals show just how much mileage a master filmmaker like Lubitsch can get from style and tone. Of course, McDonald and Chevalier and those Paramount visual aesthetics help too. The statuesque, sassy Lillian Roth and that diminutive, acrobatic dynamo Lupino Lane make great second leads, a wonderfully earthy contrast to the polish of the stars, and the soaring lyricism of “Dream Lover” makes it for me the most memorable song from Lubitsch’s early musicals. One of the delights of the countdown so far has been the inclusion of these films and Allan’s affectionate reviews of them.
I like Allan’s opening comparison with that scene in Sofia Coppola’s ‘Marie Antoinette’, which is definitely the best bit of that film. Must admit I didn’t enjoy ‘The Love Parade’ as much as Lubitsch’s other musicals, but that may well be partly because I saw it in a rather dodgy print – I am planning to get the box set and then watch it again. Definitely agree it is immeasurably better than ‘The Broadway Melody’, though I do like the main song in that one. Another great review!
I had a blast watching this a few years ago – it’s got good supports too. Though few and far between, it’s amazing how inventive the best early talkies are.
Alan, tsk tsk. You don’t think Rio Rita is another 1929 musical of any worth? I’d take it over The Broadway Melody any day. In fact there could probably be a fun revival of it on Broadway right now that would rake in the dough, which I can’t really say for Show Boat.
The Love Parade is solid enough but truth be told it’s probably my least favorite of the Chevalier/MacDonald films behind Love Me Tonight (Mamoulian, not Lubitsch), One Hour With You, and The Merry Widow.