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If there is a trace of Oscar Strauss in the music, it escapes me. This is a Maurice Chevalier vehicle at most and shows him at his most - not "best" or "worst". The sound-action-music combo is labored here with examples of people talking, visually, covered up with music, and other instances of singing where the camera is glued the the actors' mouths. The train-set "trains" are clumsy and transparently fake and the "rat-a-tat" leitmotif (for all the ooh-la-las) pushed well beyond the point. This is the Maurice Chevalier show starring Maurice Chevalier with an occasional bow from the great Lubitsch (no irony here) but that's all. It's an early talkie and we are constantly reminded that it is.

This film did a number of things supremely well, given the limits at the time of the VERY early talkies and a rather bland musical score. First - and perhaps foremost - the songs were integrated into the action and the plot beautifully. Unlike so many other "talkathons" of the time in which the camera stares at the characters' mouths all the time, we follow the characters as they go about their lives normally - while singing at the same time! Lubitsch didn't miss a step here. And although the two quite different styles of singing were in deep contrast, so were the characters! Although the country was about to be invaded by a Puritanical "Code" a bit later - and Prohibition in full swing - the film is in no way whatsoever crude or lewd. Neither was its director who could show more action filming a closed door than most others could depict in an entire film. I enjoyed this romp very much.

Yes, indeed, this movie didn't display much eroticism. It wasn't meant to be erotic. Yes, agreed, this movie doesn't cover any new ground or new techniques. It was quite appropriate to work with things that have been tried in the past - in different ways - once again, and yes, by all means, things worked out in the end the way they so seldom do in films of our time, much to my surprise. It was a happy ending to (basically) a happy movie and there's nothing whatsoever in the world wrong with that. Even more, it's handled well on all levels - acting, script, music, dancing, color, camera movement...It's a film that fulfilled a need that many of us feel when the world doesn't go where we want it to go. It simply moves the world!