Under Your Spell

The sixth and final film of Lawrence Tibbett is a delight from start to finish. It also has the distinction of being the first American film of director Otto Preminger. That this usually stolid directorial style could produce such a breezy romantic musical comedy is a surprise in and of itself.

The plot is adequately described by other reviewers. It's a B programmer coming in at just over one hour, but 20th Century Fox values are high with rapid editing, lots of humor and a Tracy-Hepburn-ish love/hate playfulness in the leads. Tibbett proves himself once again a very fine actor and Wendy Barrie is a good deal of fun as his nemesis. Ratoff is blustery and outrageous as the press agent extraordinaire and Arthur Treacher steals all his scenes as the ever so proper valet.

There are five numbers: the title song UNDER YOUR SPELL appears under the main title and in four reprises; MY LITTLE MULE WAGON; WELCOME HOME/AMIGO comprise the newly written songs by Dietsch and Schwartz. Tibbett performs the famous Mefistofele's aria from Gounod's FAUST, LA VEAU D'OR (The Golden Calf) in full costume on stage and shows himself to be one of opera's true actor singers, despite a costume design modern audiences might giggle at. Finally, there is a brief VOCALIZATIONS scene in a pool with bits of pieces of arias (FIGARO, FIGARO, etc. from BARBER OF SEVILLE).

Tibbett is in top form here and one wonders why he abandoned the film world after this. One of his best performances and one of his best films. Highly recommended.