A European songwriter with classical pretensions meets an American songwriter interested in popular music. He falls madly and impetuously in love with her, while neglecting his private audience before an impresario who could give him his Big Chance. He eventually plays before him, but the older man is more interested in the girl friend. Complications ensue. The girl's song becomes a big hit, and the young man has to make his mark on his own. For a time he seems to have the help of an Older Woman, but she chooses not to ruffle her husband's feathers. A stage performance of his musical is saved by the American's intervention, performing the lead role. He wins the girl's love, after all, despite many disruptions and her last minute spurning of her older benefactor who is by now her official fiancé.
This is a painful movie to watch. Novarro plays a very annoying, very stupid character. How any woman can fall in love with him strains belief. Even a casual moralist might have trouble with the empty headed antics of the major figures. This movie may have been made before the Hays Office censors forced cuts, for the movie makers wanted to be naughty or salacious in the story line.
As for the actors, Ramon Novarro may have been able to sing, but he is not a Nelson Eddy, much less akin to any of Eddy's successors on screen (Allan Jones, Tony Martin, Howard Keel, John Raitt, etc.).
Jeanette Macdonald is wonderful. She has been a favorite of mine since I saw her on stage at Kansas City's Starlight Theater (an outdoor stage in KC's Swope Park), playing the Gertrude Lawrence role in THE KING AND I sometime in the early '50's. The music is really only so-so. "The Night was Made for Love" is the big hit, and it's laughable. Jerome Kern gets the credit for the score, but Cole Porter and Irving Berlin composed better screen music overall.
