One Hour with You

Oh, it is good to see Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald together again. Since their first coupling in 1929's The Love Parade, each had been paired with a number of other stars with varying success. For One Hour with You, it is charmingly effective to see them as an established couple rather than two singletons meeting and falling in love. Both have matured and improved in the years since their first appearance together, and they make a delightfully appropriate match. Chevalier is boundlessly entertaining as always. There seems to be no end to the amusingly exaggerated gestures and utterances he can come out with. MacDonald, who in her earlier pictures had had an unintelligible (albeit beautiful) operatic singing voice, now delivers her vocals with clarity or character. She has also refined her comedic sensibilities, and is almost a match for Chevalier in quirkiness. And this is perhaps the best supporting casts the two were ever aligned with. Genevieve Tobin is not a well-known player, but she is marvellous here, projecting a kind of confident, overbearing flirtatiousness. Listen to the way she pronounces "sex" in the cab scene – she says it in the sense of male or female, but she is clearly thinking of its other meaning. Playing her husband, Roland Young is full of little mannerisms that are inexplicably funny, and Charles Ruggles is superbly creepy in the role of Adolph. Director Ernst Lubitsch, in spite of the increasing freedom of camera movement, appears to have simplified his technique as the talkies have progressed. Much of One Hour with You is shot in long, static takes. This is all the better to show off the superb talents of the stars, and their routines are allowed to play out undisturbed. That is not to say Lubitsch is not thinking about what he is doing. His shot composition is, as usual, geared towards lucidity, minimalism and aesthetic beauty. The images contain nothing to distract, they simply look good and focus all our attention on the performers. At the time, Paramount was at the forefront of developing the screen musical, and in the early years of the talkies we see the genre becoming more abstract and pure. One Hour with You is famed for its rhyming dialogue, a great device which perks up potentially dull scenes and keeps the musicality alive, but there is more going on besides. There is a neat use of incidental music based on the melodies of the songs, which is used to comment not only tonally but also verbally on each situation. For example the tune of "What a Little Thing Like a Wedding Ring Can Do" is played in a number of different styles at appropriate moments, reminding us of the song's lyrics in a new context. Chevalier and MacDonald would make a few more pictures together, and indeed they made better pictures together, but One Hour with You is perhaps the pinnacle of their screen partnership because it is the picture in which they worked best together as a couple. MacDonald would soon go on to an even more famous and prolific pairing with Nelson Eddy, who while pretty good was no Maurice. And Chevalier was to return to his native France, where in any case his advancing years began to exclude him from playing romantic leads. One Hour with You is not an outstanding musical as the genre goes, but it is classic Chevalier and MacDonald.

106: One Hour With You (1932) - released 3/23/1932, viewed 7/10/08. KEVIN: What? They're married?! And they're in love?! But the movie just started! Yes, Maurice Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald reunite in Ernst Lubitsch's inevitable remake of his silent film The Marriage Circle, based on the play Only A Dream by Lothar Schmidt. Naturally, the best advantage of the switch from silent to talkie is getting to hear Chevalier's accent rattling off more of Lubitsch's impeccable dialogue. Obviously not content to make a normal sex comedy, Lubitsch throws in not only musical numbers, but also several dialogue scenes made of Moliere-esquire rhyming couplets. The two leads, Chevalier and MacDonald, absolutely devour their roles. They're sensational to watch, and I look forward to a few more team-ups from them in the future. Genevieve Tobin is very good as best friend and possible home-wrecker Mitzi, the loose trophy wife who makes things interesting for our happily married heroes. Roland Young is also fantastic as Mitzi's exasperated professor husband, who's just waiting for something to happen that will justify a divorce, showing it with a deadpan delivery of the funniest lines in the movie. ("When I married her, she was a brunette. Now you can't believe anything she says.") Not to mention Lubitsch regular Charles Ruggles as the wife's dweebish old flame who's still aching to get some quality time in with the wife. DOUG: This is Lubitsch's remake to Marriage Circle, his own earlier adaptation of Schmidt's Only A Dream. All the same players are in place: The happily married couple, the flirty best friend, her boring husband, and the wife's lusty ex. In order: Chevalier brings his usual manly Frenchy charm as Andre, and Jeanette MacDonald works her best comedy muscles as his lovely society wife Collette. Genevieve Tobin plays Mitzi, determined to get her claws into Andre no matter what it may do to him and his marriage to her best friend. Roland Young plays Mitzi's supremely uncool husband, apparently bored and repulsed by his wife's flirty antics. Charles Ruggles rounds out the cast as Collette's airheaded ex Adolph. In 99% of the movies made in this period, marriage is either something people try to get into or get out of, so what a surprise it is to start a film with the two leads not only already married, but very much in love. I like to pretend this movie is kind of an informal sequel to any of the other movies starring Chevalier and MacDonald. After the events of a movie like The Love Parade, or Love Me Tonight, or The Merry Widow, where they spend the whole movie courting each other, here we get to see them after they've settled down and are living together, still without losing their fantastic chemistry. So which version is better, silent or talkie? That's hard to say. Circle was such a wonderful discovery, a silent film where all the charming sexual shenanigans still hold up today. However, I'll go with this version, which has Chevalier and MacDonald, and a more experienced Lubitsch running the show (with an assist from an uncredited George Cukor), who adds in many songs and scenes spoken in rhyming couplets. (I thought the scene where Andre attempts to switch the placecards flowed more naturally in the original, though; here, it's a tad clunky). Last film: Shanghai Express (1932). Next film viewed: It Happened One Night (1934). Next film chronologically: Tarzan the Ape Man (1932).

A good movie often gets upgraded by a superior cast. So it is with "One Hour With You", one of director Lubitsch's lesser works but which is aided immensely by the presence of Maurice Chevalier, one of the entertainment world's greatest showman. Here he is a Parisian doctor married to Jeanette MacDonald. They are apparently very much in love. Genevieve Tobin is her flirtatious friend who catches the eye of Chevalier, which starts the engine of the plot. Along the way we meet Roland Young, Tobin's husband, and Charles Ruggles, an old suitor of MacDonald's. "One Hour With You" is a light-hearted musical comedy which was considered 'naughty' at the time and contains many 'Lubitsch touches', many of which are tame by today's standards but unique back then as a way around accepted moral norms. I was not alive in the 30's, but I look on this type of movie to determine how far our society has come and to reflect on the American social psyche of the time. Considered in this light, this picture is great fun and the cast of old pros give it more status than it deserves. The songs are very tuneful, although the only one that has endured to this day is the title song. Enjoyed the cast occasionally talking in rhyme and appreciated the quick pace of the film. Very worth watching.

"One Hour With You" which seemed so fast and so risqué when I first saw it back in 1955, now looks somewhat slow and even tame. Nonetheless, there is still a lot that provides amusement and solid entertainment in the film. If the central situation is no longer as amusing as it was and if the film seems somewhat stage-bound by an excess of dialogue (some of it delivered at a rather slow pace), there is still some witty lines and ingratiating performances — particularly by Maurice Chevalier, Genevieve Tobin, Charlie Ruggles and in a brief appearance at the very beginning of the film, George Barbier. Mr. Young is agreeable but belongs to the slow delivery school and as for that arch songstress, Jeanette MacDonald, she seems to have strayed into this confection from an altogether different film, her acting is too studied and her singing too operatic to harmonize with the other members of the cast. Still, once accepted, she is not too much of a liability. Chevalier is perfect, both in song and performance, and has just the right light yet mock-serious approach to both. The songs are entrancing and the orchestrations a delight — thank heavens Lubitsch uses them and other background music to underscore most of the action. When there is no music, the proceedings are sometimes rather heavy going. Lubitsch fans will revel in this film. There are plenty of examples of his famous touch: characters walking up and down stairs, and especially his use of off-screen action, or bits of business like Chevalier and MacDonald switching the light on and off in their bedroom. The costumes are dated but attractive. The soft focus photography shines on a properly proportioned theatre screen but does not come across so well on TV. The songs, music and orchestrations are feet- tappingly delightful, the art direction is attractive and production values leave nothing to be desired.

Jeanette Macdonald is perhaps best known these days for her series of films with Nelson Eddy in the late 1930s/early 1940s, but this is a good example of her previous teaming with that naughty French export Maurice Chevalier. 'One Hour With You' features several great songs plus a fluffy plot around a married couple and misunderstood flirtations - helped a lot by other cast members Genevieve Tobin, Roland Young, and Charles Ruggles. Chevalier's charming persona is served well here in asides to the camera and a couple of great solo numbers, while Macdonald is sparky, beguiling, and a real tease.

Ernst Lubitsch (with some "assist" from George Cukor) directs this charming and witty farce which gives Maurice Chevalier a chance to steal the film from his very talented co-stars, including Jeanette MacDonald and Genevieve Tobin. His rendering of "Oh, that Mitzi!" (he breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the camera--as in "Gigi" years later), and "Three Times A Day" remain the highlights of the film. The story itself is pure fluff, a tale about a happily married couple who each have a fling but remain faithful to each other for the finale. Of course, it's all pre-code morality done with style and wit. The sprinkling of songs also includes some rhyming dialogue, always a clever mix of words and music. Jeanette's voice sounds tinny here and there's no use made of her operatic range as the songs are simple and sweet, but she's charming and appealing as Chevalier's happily married wife. It's hard to see why she couldn't suspect that her best friend Genevieve Tobin would want to seduce her husband when the woman is such an obvious flirt. But of course, the story is strictly fluff and full of many improbable moments. The rather abrupt ending seems an awkward way to resolve the whole marital situation. Worth viewing to watch Maurice Chevalier deliver one of his most satisfying performances, especially good when addressing the audience with his problems. The catchy title song by Richard Whiting gets some nice singing moments from several players.

I taped this one off UK TV in 1988 on the off chance it was good, kept it and have seen it about 10 times since. I wonder if a remastered DVD would be a little less murky as this is in places. Although a notch down from "Trouble in Paradise" it would still make it a worthy bookend, same director in Lubitsch, same studio, same year, same lightheartedness. Or maybe a triple bill with "Love me tonight", Mamoulian's masterpiece for my money, or a foursome with Sternberg's "Blonde Venus" if you feel in an even more arty mood. The plot is pretty straightforward, turning the unfaithful wife and cuckolded husband scenario on its head with Roland Young (and his maid) pleased at the situation instead of demanding a duel to the death with Chevalier. The climax seems a little awkwardly handled, but ultimately the end credits plus a final snatch of the theme make it OK. And the music is brilliant and witty, helped by Paramount's brash Orchestra producing some marvellously angular but tuneful interpretations - even with the background noises (and similar in this respect also to the non-musical TIP). Lubitsch re-used the plot from his film "The Marriage Circle", a silent with Adolphe Menjou, and although it has some fine moments is nowhere near as classy as the talkie version is. Being silent it has a completely different ambiance, but it's fun guessing where the songs should go. All of the a/m films are sublime and should be on prescription!

One Hour with You is a bit of sophisticated, amusing and perfectly executed sexual fluff. The whole point is an adventure in adultery -- schemed for, resisted, accomplished and forgiven. If anyone could make adultery into a joyful occasion for gaiety, Lubitsch is the man. And he does. Dr. Andre Bertier (Maurice Chevalier) and his wife, Colette Bertier (Jeanette MacDonald, have been married three years…three years of madly passionate bliss. Why, they even go to Parisian parks for an evening of kissing before returning to their apartment…or more precisely, their apartment's bedroom. But Colette has a best friend, Mitzi (Genevieve Tobin), a sly minx who thinks husbands are the perfect trophies for her own bedroom, one she doesn't share with her older husband, Professor Livier (Roland Young). The professor, a dry, wry and worldly man, has no illusions about his wife. When he unexpectedly walks into the parlor of his home one day and sees Mitzi with Andre, we know Mitzi called for Andre to come over on the pretext that she was feeling badly so that she might seduce him. So Mitzi quickly says to her husband, "Darling, I'm not feeling very well." "Why should you?" the professor asks. "Oh, no, Professor," Andre says, "Madame is in a very serious condition." Says the Professor, "Why shouldn't she be? Conditions are bad everywhere." Hovering nearby is Adolph (Charles Ruggles), the eager-man-about town and friend of both of the Bertiers, who is eager to get to know Colette even better. Mitzi, when she meets Andre, is determined to know Andre better, too. Resist though Andre does…well, as he asks us, what would you do? And Colette, when she suspects what might have happened, begins to think Adolph might be just the thing for a bit of what's good for the gander is good for the goose. And after all, Adolph tells Colette, "Any man who leaves a woman like you with a man like me…deserves it" Does Andre give in to Mitzi? For that matter, does Colette give in to Adolph? If this movie were made after the Code, the answer would be no. But One Hour with You was made just before the Code slammed down. Do Andre and Colette confess…and does the movie end with a shrug, a laugh, a kiss? Well, of course. Adultery shouldn't be seen as anything more than a momentary temptation if two married people – married to each other, of course -- love each other. The movie swirls through this charming tale of love and temptation with the men in white ties and the women in sleek gowns and skimpy scanties. The songs are few but light- hearted. Perhaps more importantly, a light-hearted score drawn from the songs runs through most of the film. Lubitsch even features rhyming dialogue on several occasions that is clever and pointed. When Colette tells Mitzi all about her passionate husband and her life, she and Mitzi discuss things in rhyme, as in this intriguing couplet. Says Colette to Mitzi, handing her a tiny wisp of something silk, "Oh, I must show you my new lingerie…" Replies Mitzi, "Too stunning for only a husband to see…" As delightful, sexy and uncorseted as Jeanette MacDonald is as Colette, the movie is definitely Maurice Chevalier's. He often explains to us his dilemma…loving his wife yet with Mitzi throwing herself at him…by talking directly to us. Chevalier's Hollywood screen persona as an immensely charming and light-hearted man who sees providing satisfying, intimate pleasure to as many ladies as possible as almost a duty, makes the dish Mitzi puts him in tasty indeed. This movie also owes a great deal to the literate and sophisticated screenplay by Samson Raphaelson. He and Lubitsch in partnership gave us some great movies…this one and The Smiling Lieutenant the year before, but most particularly Trouble in Paradise (1932), The Merry Widow (1934), The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and Heaven Can Wait (1943).

I first saw this film in 1955 at a tiny art cinema in Oxford. The print was in perfect condition and the shimmering dresses and art deco were fascinating. I sat through three showings and left on a wave of good feeling which has lasted ever since. (I can still sing "Three Times a Day" in which Chevalier as a doctor prescribes pills to his patient (with its the sexual innuendo). The comparison with Mamoulian's"Love me Tonight" with the same principals is very interesting. Mamoulian sends up the aristocratic Ruritanian musical comedy while Lubitsch adores the middle class. Both in their different ways are brilliant. Both use surrealist effects to heighten a sense of unreality. This is pure entertainment in a European tradition. Genevieve Tobin is a wonderful support but her career never really took off.

Sometimes these old films are useful if only because they are a fossilized record of the evolution of certain film techniques. Here it is the technique of the main character looking directly at and addressing the audience outside of the story. As this really is expertly put together, there are many discrete steps of reality woven into this. There's the standard overlay of play and song that musicals had for decades. But there's also a couple other modes: one in which the characters speak their lines in rhyme. And a more subtle level where the tone is more deliberately artificial, play-like. Incidentally, I have mentioned elsewhere that the current reputation of Paris as a romantic place was largely manufactured by the US film industry using hidden subsidies. The idea was attract US tourist dollars as part of the Marshall plan. Before the war, it was a place of sex without romance. Romance was deliberately out of the equation. You can see that here. The one hour is all that is required for the liaison that matters. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.