Paramount, 1932. Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Starring Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Charlie Ruggles, Charles Butterworth, Myrna Loy, and C. Aubrey Smith. Music score written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.
With his thick French accent, his ever-present smile, and his joie de vivre, Maurice Chevalier hit the bigtime in the United States in the early 1930s. By the time he made Love Me Tonight, he was the most successful entertainer in his native France, and his singing style and nonchalant approach to acting and to life in general went over extremely well with American audiences in a moment when musicals enjoyed great popularity.
In this free adaptation of the story of Sleeping Beauty, Chevalier stars as a tailor who shows up at the castle of a duke to claim payment for some suits that he has made. On his way to the castle, he meets Jeanette MacDonald, cast as a young widowed princess, and he falls in love with her. As usual in early musicals, the plot isn't the most interesting element of the movie, but the score by Rodgers and Hart is excellent and features such magnificent songs as the title track, "Mimi" (superbly sung by Chevalier), "Lover," and "I'm an Apache." The pairing of Chevalier and MacDonald sounds a little odd, since their singing styles are so utterly different, but it does work perfectly on screen, and the two actually made a couple more pictures together.
The great director Rouben Mamoulian explores all the technical possibilities of filmmaking at his disposal at the time, even making use of slow motion and fast-forwarding in some scenes, all of which makes the movie rather unusual. The opening scene, which precedes Chevalier's performance of the "Song of Paree," is really a gem. The camera follows all kinds of workers as they start their workday in Paris, and the noises that they make during their labor provide the music for this true symphony of urban life. Although it isn't extremely well known, Love Me Tonight is a very enjoyable musical, and in our opinion, Chevalier's performance adds to its overall charm.
Anton&Erin.
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