Enamorados

"Sweethearts" has so much going for it that it's painful to admit to some lesser Victor Herbert songs as main features. Eddy and MacDonald are fine, the Technicolor is lovely, and the cast is top notch. Unfortunately, there are only about two songs that are worthy of the great Herbert.

Well, every composer can't turn out all hits; it's just unfortunate that the lesser songs are given such up front treatment. As much as the stars pour their all into these songs, they fall rather flat and unmemorable.

The production numbers are spectacular, the production design lovely, and the costumes eye-popping. Too bad this one didn't rise to the level of the duo's other film entries. Still, kudos to the quality of both the singing and acting of Eddy-MacDonald.

Sweethearts is the first of two of the Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy films to be done in technicolor, the second at last being Bittersweet. It is also the first MGM film done in modern technicolor, though in Jeanette's The Cat and the Fiddle, the last 10 minutes were in color. And it is the only one of their films besides Bittersweet where they start off as man and wife.

The original operetta by Victor Herbert was done in 1913 and it was in fact a story set in Holland as the numbers do show. But this film is like the later one Nelson did with Rise Stevens, The Chocolate Soldier, in that he and Stevens are husband and wife appearing in The Chocolate Soldier while the plot of that is taken from Ferenc Molnar's The Guardsman.

Sweethearts has an original script by Dorothy Parker and it involves two happily married singing co-stars of a long running operetta, named Sweethearts. They've been appearing on Broadway for seven years in the same show.

In fact a whole cottage industry has grown up around Sweethearts. Producer Frank Morgan, songwriter Herman Bing, librettist Mischa Auer have had it real good for seven years. They've been quite content to live off the box office of Sweethearts as long as MacDonald and Eddy keep appearing. Also the extended families of both Eddy and MacDonald live off of them as well.

When Reginald Gardiner woos them on behalf of Hollywood producer George Barbier, panic ensues among the ranks of the cottage industry. These people might actually have to go to work.

Knowing Dorothy Parker wrote 50% of the script, you can imagine it is a witty one. Jeanette and Nelson are in good voice and the musical calls for a large number of duets. They sing the title song, For Every Lover Meets His Fate, and an interpolated non Victor Herbert song, Our Little Grey Home in the West in anticipation of their California excursion. In addition Jeanette sings A Summer Serenade which was originally an instrumental Victor Herbert composition entitled Badinage. Robert Wright and Chet Forrest gave it some lyrics for the film. Nelson has a good typical Nelson marching song in On Parade.

After appearing with Nelson Eddy in Rosalie as a sidekick Ray Bolger didn't have as many scenes, but got to show his dancing talent a lot more in the Wooden Shoes number. Jeanette personally interceded with Louis B. Mayer and got Douglas MacPhail and Betty Jaynes cast as their understudies.

MacPhail and Jaynes married later on, but divorced after MacPhail's career took a nosedive in the early Forties. He was a good singer who you might remember appeared with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in Babes in Arms and later introduced the Cole Porter classic, I Concentrate on You in Broadway Melody of 1940. Tragically he took his own life after the divorce for God only knows what reasons.

For Jeanette and Nelson fans and for those who like to see Ray Bolger in something else besides The Wizard of Oz, Sweethearts in highly recommended.

In glorious Technicolor,the stars are probably at their best,exceeding such romances as "New Moon","Rose Marie" and the others. Production values are enormous,beginning with a dance by Ray Bolger to a Dutch background heightened in color by beds of tulips.They are just enough not to be overwhelming. Jean and Nelson are the stars in the film of the sixth year of the stage production of Victor Herbert's 1913 show "Sweethearts" and are being done to death by the importunities of radio,recording,and family demands. Frank Morgan is his usual perplexed and harassed self as the stage producer,Herman Bing and Misha Auer are in top form as a mutually fighting conductor and wannabe playwright. One delightful vignette is during her modelling session at a dressmaker's shop,where she shows off the various colors and styles for different occasions. One gem is Eddy's race,pursued by speed cops,in a taxi from recording studio to NBC radio (looking much then as now) where Jeanette awaits him,having just broadcast Herbert's "Badinage" ably accompanied with much panache by Dalies Frantz.Some of her old Lubitsch (Director "Merry Widow"et al.) sassiness comes out as she mimes with the audience, until Eddy arrives, looking like a naughty schoolboy,with sleeve pulled up arm' amid her tidying of his appearance. One of the nicest shots is down the staircase at their home during the duet of "Little Gray home in the West",one of the most sincere performances. Herbert Stothart deserves much credit for his arrangement of Herbert's melodies,the duets and the delightful continuous orchestrations of the sound track. I would certainly watch this masterpiece several times.

This one is notable for being MGM's first Technicolor movie. "Sweethearts" won cinematographers Oliver Marsh and Allan Davey special Oscars for their work with color film. MacDonald looks gorgeous--black and white didn't do her justice.

The music is pleasant enough, but not memorable. The couple is nauseatingly in love through the first hour, starring in a long running Broadway production - "Sweethearts". Unable to find rest during their six year production, the two are enticed to go to Hollywood instead, being promised lots of breaks between films. The normally feuding creative forces/producers of "Sweethearts" realize that this is the end of the gravy train, so they hatch a plan to keep the two from leaving. Complications ensue.

When MacDonald and Eddy aren't singing, the film seems endless. Not even the scenes with animals make this amusing. Eddy is the one who brings off some sight gags--three of them to be exact. Frank Morgan and the rest of the cast are stranded without any funny lines. They just made me groan--and I'm an easy laugher. It's hard to make Frank Morgan unfunny.

Trivia I noticed--the opening operetta is on the same set that "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936) used for the "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" number. There is a lengthy end credit explaining that the actors on the screen didn't write the 1913 operetta "Sweethearts". MacDonald has a five minute fashion show and proves she looks good in any outfit, no matter how misguided.

If you see this, watch the first thirty minutes and the fashion show for the cinematographers playing with colors, then fast forward between songs.

While there films are not nearly so popular today, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy were incredibly hot properties for MGM and this would explain why MGM made "Sweethearts" in full Technicolor...something they'd never done with a full length film. Many studios had made films using cheaper (and inferior) color stock such as Two-Color Technicolor and the new, improved full color from Technicolor was expensive and MGM pulled out all the stops for their big team.

MacDonald and Eddy play Gwen Marlowe and Ernest Lane, a pair of Broadway stars who have been packing theaters for years with their latest show, "Sweethearts". Not surprisingly, Hollywood comes knocking...and Marlowe and Lane's handlers do their best to try to hold on to them and prevent their defection to the West Coast.

As you watch this, you might think that the Technicolor is a bit garish and intense. This was often the case with early Technicolor...partly because of the film process and partly because its inventor insisted that his ex-wife, Natalie Kalmus, be the color consultant...and she determined the colors of the costumes, sets and the like. And, of the stars, MacDonald comes off the worst because she appears so incredibly ruddy in the film....and rather unnatural.

As you'd expect in one of their films, there is a LOT of singing...intense singing and big stage production numbers. This is the style of their films...a style which seemed to grow less and less popular into the 1940s and 50s. You either like it or you don't. As for the rest of the story, it's enjoyable and well made. I didn't mind the story at first, but found it really tanked when MacDonald's character changed...becoming rather demanding and nasty and VERY jealous. This was NOT a welcome story element. I also found the musical numbers difficult to enjoy because it's a style I've never been all that fond of seeing and hearing in films.