LOVE ME TONIGHT came out of nowhere to charm the pants off me.It was fun to see Maurice Chevalier star in this one after watching GIGI last year. In GIGI he was an old perv -- LOVE ME TONIGHT is from 1932, so this is young Chevalier. I never realized Chevalier was so cool. Now I know.
The story involves Chevalier as a tailor named Maurice (creative!) who falls in love with a princess played by Jeanette MacDonald named Jeanette (creative!). They meet when Maurice is invited to stay at the estate of a gentleman who owes him a bunch of money for suits (Charlie Ruggles). Once at the estate, Chevalier charms everyone (including me), and everyone assumes he's a gentleman of high standing. Chevalier meets the Princess' horny sister (super hot Myrna Loy), a trio of fussy aunts (Elizabeth Patterson, Ethel Griffies, Blanche Friderici), the bumbling master of the estate (C. Aubrey Smith) and a count who also wants to bang the princess (Charles Butterworth).
This musical had me constantly admiring how far ahead of its time it was. Even though it's from 1932, the early days of sound, it makes full use of the soundtrack with dialogue, sound effects, a musical score and lots of singing sequences. Similar films I've seen from the time struggle to comprehend what they're supposed to do with their soundscapes. This one's overflowing -- from the very opening scene, we see the streets of Paris slowly waking up, as one sound effect adds to another until the soundtrack is full of a song made up of the rhythm of the city's sounds. This is almost 40 years before Pink Floyd's MONEY, around 60 years before shows like STOMP.
The direction by Rouben Mamoulian is similarly ahead of its time, using several interesting techniques to tell the story, including an early sequence in which the camera seems to float around the exterior of the giant estate house (it looks kinda like Hogwarts!), peeking in different windows to pick up on different little issues with the various characters in the house.
The movie has a wide variety of humor, ranging from physical pratfalls like the scene where Chevalier has to ride an insane horse named Solitude, to wacky word play, mostly involving sexual double entendres. Some of my favorite quips were from Myrna Loy, who spends most of the movie bemoaning her lot in life, cooped up in a manor house without a single man to sleep with in sight.
The songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart are also funny, as well as catchy, and seem to fit well within the confines of the snappy dialogue. The songs never slow the action down, and the movie clocks in at a brisk hour and a half, refreshing for a romance.
I'd like to reiterate how awesome Chevalier is. He's kind of a big oaf with a body and face that seems to have been slapped together somewhat haphazardly, but his style and charm more than makes up for it and his character is so in love with the notion of being in love that he's hard to resist.
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