Love Me Tonight (1932)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Rouben Mamoulian

Writers:

Paul Armont (play)
Samuel Hoffenstein (writer)

Release Date:

17 August 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Musical | Comedy

Tagline:

Warm Love! Hilarious fun! Sweet music! Hot lyrics!

Plot:

A Parisian tailor finds himself posing as a baron in order to collect a sizeable bill from an aristocrat, only to fall in love with an aloof young princess.

Plot Keywords:

Tailor | Beautiful Woman | Cobbler | Deer | Debt

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Maurice Chevalier	...	Maurice Courtelin a.k.a Baron Courtelin
Jeanette MacDonald	...	Princess Jeanette
Charles Ruggles	...	Viscount Gilbert de Varèze (as Charlie Ruggles)
Charles Butterworth	...	Count de Savignac
Myrna Loy	...	Countess Valentine
C. Aubrey Smith	...	Duke d'Artelines
Elizabeth Patterson	...	First Aunt
Ethel Griffies	...	Second Aunt
Blanche Friderici	...	Third Aunt (as Blanche Frederici)
Joseph Cawthorn	...	Dr. Armand de Fontinac (as Joseph Cawthorne)
Robert Greig	...	Major Domo Flammand
Bert Roach	...	Emile

Runtime:

104 min | 96 min (re-release) | USA:88 min (Turner Library Print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

UK:U | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Filming Locations:

Paramount Ranch - 2813 Cornell Road, Agoura, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Libary of Congress, in 1990.

Goofs:

Continuity: The lighting on Jeanette during the balcony scene.

Quotes:

Vicomte Gilbert de Vareze: [after the Princess has fainted] Could you go for a doctor?
Countess Valentine: YES... bring him right in!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Soundtrack:

Isn't It Romantic

Wonderful, and far ahead of its time

This is an enchanting film, one of the best musicals of the decade. Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald are incredibly appealing in a rich-girl-poor-boy musical romance. It's one of those rare films where the girl runs away from the palace to follow her true love and you *don't* think "wait a minute, you'll never survive out there", no, you want them to be together. The score is enchanting (the big hits being "Isn't it Romantic" and "Lover"), Chevalier is devastatingly attractive, and MacDonald is vulnerably appealing and completely without the annoying primness that marred her later films.

It's also a remarkably well made film for 1932, when most films were just getting used to sound and suffered from a horrible stiffness on the part of the actors and the camera. You'd think this movie was made ten years later, it's lively and sparkling, and directed with a smoothness and originality that's still amazing.