MacDonald & Eddy best movie?

[Lostintime]

If I had to chose my favorite movie of all those starred by MacDonald and Eddy, it would be very hard for me to make a decision among Rose Marie, Naughty Marietta, Maytime and Sweethearts.These are my reasons:

Naughty Marietta
Strong points: It contains the better performance ever given by Eddy. He appears much younger and dashing than in his subsequent roles. His "I'm Falling In Love With Someone" is as memorable as MacDonald "Italian Street Song". On the other hand, "One Take" Van Dyke gives the film a sense of carefree and spontaneity that it is difficult to find in the rest of the series.
Weak points: Its somewhat cheap look, the stars dressed in the rococo fashion for the ball and Frank Morgan's mannerims.

Maytime
Strong points: It was Jeanette' s favorite and it's easy to guess why. All the complete sequence of the Maytime Day is absolutely exquisite. The fair, the ball, the loving game, Vorkapich's montage, the inmortal "Will You Remember?" and Jeanette in that spectacular Adrian's gown . Who could ask for anything more?
Weak points: The operatic sequences are too solemn to be entertaining. Maybe it would be different if Van Dyke was the director instead Leonard.

Rose Marie
Strong points: The MacDonald-Eddy movie per excellence. The pair in state of grace. Every song is a showstopper. Once again Van Dyke's mise en scene keeps the mood of the film in the best shape. The sequences filmed on location are colorful in the false Peribonka and beautiful in the mountains. I can't forget Jeanette's last close up when she is singing "Pardon Me Madam"!
Weak point: The rear projection while Eddy sings "The Song Of The Mounties" is unacceptable even for 1936, specially after a few great shots of the Mountains' exercises.

Sweethearts
Strong points: A beautiful early Technicolor photography, a Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell's bright screenplay, a great cast, MacDonald's fashion show and her singing with Eddy of "Little Grey Home In The West".
Weak point: Its photography is waiting a restoration. That impedes to enjoy the film in all its glory.

[entredeuxguerres]

Think I'm most drawn to Marietta, though none of these represent my favorite "Jeanettes." That such a beautiful song as "Sweet Mystery," with (unusual in a popular tune) meaningful lyrics, could have become the object of mockery & ridicule tells you all you need to know about post-war popular culture. You hit the nail on the head about the unfortunate "rococo" look.

Forget exactly Frank Morgan's role--one of his Frank the clown, the bumbling fool, roles, I presume? That's what the public preferred, of course...not (my preference) Frank the urbane, debonair gentleman, which he could play so well as to make his other persona seem inconceivable.

[drednm]

I'd go with Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, and Maytime. But the surreal I Married an Angel is quite different and has its moments.

[earlytalkie]

I've seen only three: Maytime, Rose Marie and Sweethearts. I liked Maytime best, followed by Rose Marie. Sweethearts uninvolving story left me cold as well as seeing Jeanette with very over-rouged cheeks. I realize this was MGM's first foray into full three-strip, but this was not attractive. Actually, my favorite Jeanette movie would have to be San Francisco, in which she has Gable, Tracy and the San Francisco earthquake as co-stars. The special effects in this are still impressive today.

[bobfells]

I'd have to agree that overall SAN FRANCISCO ranks as Jeanette's best MGM film. But the question is about ranking the 8 MacEddys and the four discussed - NAUGHTY MARIETTA, ROSE MARIE, MAYTIME, and SWEETHEARTS - are readily the best four. Actually, the series allows us to see MGM's arc of going from a creative studio of the Thalberg years to the by-the-numbers assembly line post-Thalberg. Of course the same can be said of the TARZAN, THIN MAN and MARX BROS. series too.

MARIETTA has a simple charm and the unexpected chemistry of MacEddy going for it. The score is great and Herbert Stothart did wonders in refurbishing the 1910 arrangements. But I give the edge to ROSE MARIE over MARIETTA because the MacEddy relationship is more complex and ultimately comes to an impasse before the less-then-convincing finale. The outdoor photography is gorgeous and no other MacEddy film would offer so much of it. Increasingly, the films became indoor bound and relying on indoor for outdoor.

MAYTIME is their masterpiece but it's an exhausting film with an exhausting running time of 132 mins. John Barrymore steals the show dramatically but in a sense it's a symbolic victory because everyone watches the MacEddys for the singing and not so much the acting. Still, Barrymore provided a dramatic backbone their films never had before or thereafter.

SWEETHEARTS had a script credited to Parker & Campbell but the film pulls so many of its satiric punches that I have to believe the Parker/Campbell script was picked apart by a squad of other writers. I'd love to see their original draft. Instead we see Nelson Eddy playing with kittens backstage (!) and a self-congratulatory mood of "aren't we wonderful" throughout the first half of this two hour opus.

I think the whole deal would have been more effective if tightened to 100 mins. Yes, the sweetness is a setup for the couple's split in the second half and only there does the story become interesting. But we have to wait a long time to get there. Also, the mittle-Europe stage musical numbers are stylistically at odds with everything else in the movie but they seem a nod to Victor Herbert's original operetta. The Technicolor photography covers a multitude of SWEETHEARTS' shortcomings but the MGM bloat is clearly in evidence. You'd think they would have learned a few lessons from ROSALIE and A DAY AT THE RACES but evidently not. For these reasons I'd rank SWEETHEARTS in fourth place among the top four with ROSE MARIE, MAYTIME, and MARIETTA as 1,2 and 3 respectively.

A word about the "other four." THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST must have sounded great in story conferences but the MGM bloat sinks it. There little outdoor photography but Eddy's rousing "Soldiers of Fortune" filmed outdoors and on horseback seems a "make good" for the rear screen business in ROSE MARIE. THE NEW MOON is a redux of NAUGHTY MARIETTA with a strong score, but an overweight Eddy and an aging Mac, while Buster Keaton disconcertingly appears for a few seconds here and there throughout the film. Did MGM really think that nobody would notice?

BITTER SWEET is a MAYTIME redux but with Technicolor as a saving grace. By then, 1940, Mac's persona had become starchy and her youthfulness was quickly receding. Eddy was wooden and seemed bored. I can almost hear the story conferences - "Let's make it like MAYTIME only different."

I agree with the earlier comments that I MARRIED AN ANGEL is a refreshing change from the rut MacEddy were in by 1942, or rather the rut their films were in. At 80 mins. this film was evidently much longer as characters come and go without reason. I think there was a creative split between those who wanted a return to MARIETTA's simple "just sing a song" and those who believed that every song in an MGM film required a big production number to go with it. Indeed, Nelson first song, "Little Work-A-Day World," was wisely cut because it stopped the whole story dead in its tracks before it ws barely underway. Still, ANGEL has an energy to it, sort of like the way WHAT NO BEER? was an energy to it, that carries you along amidst the rubble. The Rodgers & Hart score is well handled, and the Mac-Binnie Barnes number is a stand out. A flawed work, I'd choose to see ANGEL again over GOLDEN WEST, NEW MOON and BITTER SWEET simply because there was some thinking going on again.

Ironically, I heard the commercial recordings from the films some years before I ever got to see the films themselves. On the whole, I enjoyed the records more than the films!

[entredeuxguerres]

On the whole, I enjoyed the records more than the films!

Not hard to believe--the songs are the best part of 'em. "Between songs," I find my mind, & interest, wandering...can't seem to sustain great interest in the story, plot, or (shall I be blunt?), Mr. Eddy.

The bloom, as you say, may have been wearing thin on Jeanette's rose by 1940, but I still find her (in a more mature way, of course) ravishing in Smilin' Through; can't put my finger on it...her glorious hair, the makeup, lighting...don't know, but she enthralled me. Moreover, though "ghost stories" generally disinterest me, I find this one, due entirely to Jeanette, almost compelling; something I can't say about Norma Shearer's edition. (And I love Norma!)

[drednm]

Very underrated is MacDonald's final film, a little number called The Sun Comes Up. She's obviously "middle aged" and plays it. A widowed singer who faces another disaster in her life, she retreats to a small town in the South where she learns about life from a boy and his dog. She also gets to sing a number of songs without that pesky Eddy. Nice little film with MacDonald singing "Un Bel Di Vedremo."

[Lostintime]

This is exactly what I thought when I saw Jeanette in Smilin' Through. Miraculosly she appeared beautiful, not aged as in New Moon and properly maked up without the excesses observed in Sweethearts. Definitely it was her swansong as a great beauty of the screen. But for me, Shearer's film is more interesting dramatically speaking than MacDonald's. Even though they both have identical story, the 1941 film seems too simplistic and bland in comparison with the previous one, maybe because the casualties of the war, which are an important point of the story, were not an easy topic to deal with in 1941, or perhaps because MGM executives though that it was too depressing for a Technicolor musical. The 1932 film is the typical polished product that Thalberg prepared devotely to his wife. A good story with an adult approach, a great cast and a superb Lee Garmes' cinematography. And the result reflects Norma's screen persona as no other film in her double role, the exciting combination that she exhibits between the old and new, Victorian innocence and modern womanhood, romantic nineteenth century and realistic twentieth century.

[Richard P. May]

Re the comments on the quality of color in SWEETHEARTS --- the original 3-strip negative was destroyed in a fire in 1978.
Protection positives had been made, but using these for modern printing don't have the first-generation quality of the originals.

[drednm]

and then there's the silent version of Smiling Through with Norma Talmadge. I like them all but would have to watch them in succession to really pick apart the differences in the stories, etc.

[didi-5]

Having just this year watched the two MacEddy titles I was missing, I'll try and rank them in order for me. And I am very much a fan of both performers ...

1. Rose Marie. It's adorable, funny, and if it wasn't for that dodgy back projection in The Mounties, it would be an almost perfect musical. Both leads play well off each other, and the storyline isn't bad at all.

2. Sweethearts. It's in colour, it has a sparkling script, and both leads are playful in a more modern setting. I think it is great, and it also has several fun supporting characters.

3. Maytime. It might be a bit on the long side, and the ghostly story might creak a bit, but the basic story is touching, the leads are in great voice, and there's the bonus of a Barrymore in the cast as well.

4. Naughty Marietta. The first MacEddy film - great songs, and although Jeanette might not be as racy as she was in her pairings with Chevalier, there's still a little bit of spice going on here.

5. Bitter Sweet. Here the colour is a bit of a minus as it doesn't do Jeanette or Nelson any favours, but (the loss of If Love Were All aside) this does justice to Noel Coward's tunes, if not his plot.

6. I Married An Angel. A silly story stripped of many of its Rodgers and Hart stage numbers, this nevertheless does work, and has almost the same sense of fun as Sweethearts. I don't know why it is slighted in the MacEddy oeuvre.

7. The Girl of the Golden West. A bit of a misfire, with Nelson an unlikely bandit. It's the one I would probably return to the least, and it isn't particularly memorable.

8. New Moon. The songs are lovely, but Jeanette looks tired and Nelson has put on too much weight for their love story to be convincing. It's a very silly tale in any case. This is an example where I'll listen to the CD rather than put on the film.

[bobfells]

FWIW, the MacEddy partnership didn't end with ANGEL in 1942. Thereafter they performed adaptations of some of their films on radio, most notably on Lux Radio Theater, right through to the end of the decade. Interesting to note the films that were passed over for radio: GOLDEN WEST, NEW MOON, BITTER SWEET and ANGEL.

Mac guested on the Kraft Music Hall a few times during the summer of 1948 when Eddy hosted. Their easy banter, though scripted, was enjoyable and fairly good. On one show Mac plugs her upcoming movie, THE SUN COMES UP (then known as FOLLOW THE SUN) but Eddy complains that it was bad enough that he was replaced by Jose Iturbi in Mac's previous film, but in the new film he's replaced by Lassie.

[drednm]

Lassie didn't sing very well but was a better leading man.

[entredeuxguerres]

and then there's the silent version of Smiling Through with Norma Talmadge. I like them all but would have to watch them in succession to really pick apart the differences in the stories, etc.

So would I (were Norma T's version available with a worthy score), but one difference seems decisive to me: Jeanette's voice.

[drednm]

Rewatched The Sun Comes Up, wonderful old sentimental film with great color and lots of humor. MacDonald looks great in her final film appearance.

[bobfells]

Here's the "Leo Is On the Air" movie promos for:

THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST (1938):
http://ia700703.us.archive.org/27/items ... n_West.mp3" target="_blank

I MARRIED AN ANGEL (1942):
http://ia600703.us.archive.org/27/items ... _Angel.mp3" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank