Best Pictures #24: 1929-30 (3rd) Academy Awards Outstanding Production Nominee, The Love Parade (1929)

by A.J.

Best Pictures #24: 1929-30 (3^rd) Academy Awards Outstanding Production Nominee

The Love Parade(1929)

Director Ernst Lubitsch’s final silent film, The Patriot (a Best Picture nominee the previous year), is a lost film unfortunately, but, thankfully, his first talkie and musical has been preserved and is available on home video as part of the Eclipse series released by the Criterion Collection. It also airs occasionally on TCM. The Love Parade received the most nominations of any film at the 3^rd Academy Awards with a total of six, including nominations for Maurice Chevalier and Ernst Lubitsch, but it did not win in any category. This film is allegedly the first movie musical to incorporate songs and performances into the narrative, as opposed to a backstage musical, such as The Broadway Melody, in which the characters are singers and dancers.

Lubitsch, who had directed many silent films, takes to talking pictures quite well right out of the gate. There is nothing clunky or awkward with the composition and staging of shots or overall style that suggests someone working through a learning curve. Of course The Love Parade has several strong elements working together in addition to Lubitsch’s skill behind the camera. Based on the play The Prince Consort, the script is loaded with lively dialogue, a sharp sense of humor that does not shy away from innuendo, and likeable characters. Maurice Chevalier plays Count Alfred, who is recalled from Paris to his homeland of Slyvania after (several) scandals involving married women.

Lubitsh transitions from silent filmmaking to working with sound and dialogue smoothly. He does not over indulge in dialogue and music and still uses silent visuals to great effect. When a servant in the Queen’s palace asks why Alfred has a French accent, Alfred says that he went to see a doctor about a cold but was greeted by the doctor’s wife. The movie cuts to an exterior shot of the palace and through a window we see Alfred whisper the rest of the story to the servant. When the movie cuts back inside Alfred says that the cold was gone, but he had that terrible accent. I had never seen a movie starring Maurice Chevalier before and he is as charming and lively and French as I’d imagined.

Jeanette MacDonald, in her screen debut, plays Queen Louise who in addition to having the responsibilities of a governing queen is also under pressure from her ministers and advisors to marry. The trouble with finding her a suitor is that he would be only Price Consort and have no power or responsibility in governing. She meets Count Alfred to reprimand him for his scandals, but they both quickly charm each other and flirt through song.

Aside from a dolly shot or two, I must confess that I was so caught up with the characters and story that I hardly noticed the camerawork, or lack thereof. Lubitsch fills the screen with entertainment, so even static shots are hardly dull. The songs are pleasing and catchy. The palace sets and costumes are opulent and impressive. There are memorable scenes both with and without music. From his balcony at the beginning of the film, Chevalier sings his goodbye to Paris and the women on nearby balconies. His valet, Jacques, played by Lupino Lane, joins in and sings goodbye to Parisian maids. Then Chevalier’s dog sings, by barking, to the female dogs of Paris. We see none of Alfred and Louise’s first date. Instead we see the Queen’s advisors, her ladies in waiting, and Jacques and the Queen’s maid spying on the date and reporting to each other like a game of telephone. The Queen’s maid, Lulu, played by Lillian Roth, and Jacques have some good songs together too.

The Love Parade is almost overwhelmingly enjoyable, up to a point. There are two distinct halves to this movie. The first half is very funny, jaunty, and romantic. The second half, after Alfred and Louise are married, deals with their marital problems. There is still humor and entertainment value in this half of the film but at a diminished level. Queen Louise and Alfred seem to misunderstand and mistreat each other immediately after they are married and solely for the sake of dramatic conflict. Their main conflict is that Alfred does not have the traditional role of a man in their marriage or in the monarchy. Queen Louise runs the country and palace. Traditional gender roles in marriage and government being the central conflict of a musical from 1929 is interesting, however, as you might imagine, these issues are addressed but not challenged. The two tonally different halves of The Love Parade make for an uneven but overall enjoyable musical. There is still a lot to enjoyed in The Love Parade and it is a good step forward for the nascent musical genre.

Nominee: Paramount Famous Lasky

Producer: Ernst Lubitsch

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

Screenplay: Ernest Vadja and Guy Bolton, from the play The Prince Consort by Leon Xanrof and Jules Chancel

Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Lillian Roth

Release Date: November 19^th, 1929

Total Nominations: 6, including Outstanding Production

Win(s): N/A

Other Nominations: Actor-Maurice Chevalier, Director-Ernst Lubitsch, Cinematography-Victor Milner, Art Direction-Hans Dreier, Sound Recording-Franklin Hansen

Allen Abroad

by AJ

I would have loved to have been around during the late 1950s/early 1960s: all the men wore sharp suits and skinny ties, women wore dresses, the music was great, movie musicals were actually good. Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to go to the better movie theater in my hometown because it was for “whites only.” But that's not part of my 60s, that is to say, my dream of the 60s.
In Midnight in Paris, the latest film from Woody Allen, an unsatisfied screenwriter/aspiring novelist played by Owen Wilson is visiting Paris with his fiance and her parents. Gil's (Owen Wilson) idea of a great time in Paris is different from his fiance's, which includes spending a lot of time with a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual played quite well by Michael Sheen. Gil pines for the Paris of the 1920s, when you might find people like F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Picasso at the same party on any given night.
A lot of reviews have tried to step around the actual plot of this film, describing it instead as a movie about a "young engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better." That plot description comes from IMDB and is similar to descriptions on other websites and periodicals. But it really isn't a spoiler to tell you that late one night as Gil takes a stroll an older model car pulls up next to him and he's invited for a ride by some revelers on their way to a party. At the party, after meeting Zelda and her husband "Scott," Gil realizes that, somehow, he's been transported to the Jazz Age Paris that has been the focus of his nostalgia. That's not a spoiler because Woody Allen is a genuine auteur and storyteller. He could make a whole movie about a couple dealing with illusions of the life they want to be living which takes place entirely in the real world, but I'm glad he didn't and chose to add magic to Midnight in Paris. But Gil wandering into 1920s Paris is the just the tip of the iceberg.
It's the not the actual historical Paris of the 1920s Gil finds himself in, but what we think that time and that city would be like. The movie is a dream of that time period. There are so many great moments with the personalities Gil runs into during his nights in Jazz Age Paris. You should recognize the names of the people he encounters from prerequisite college courses you may have taken. The most notable of these names are Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, whom Gil gets to help him with his book. Now that's an aspiring novelist's dream if I've ever heard one. I won't say too much else about his nights in bygone Paris since the charm and humor of those scenes comes from who he just happens to run into at parties and cafes. The movie doesn't go into how it is that Gil is able to wander back in time. I think the movie, like Gil, is too thrilled to bother asking how or why.

The movies Allen has made abroad have all dealt with heavy themes, even the comedies. Match Point, Scoop, and Cassandra's Dream involved murder; You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger was interesting look at people's plans and schemes; Vicky Christina Barcelona, which I enjoyed very much, was a comedy in that it wasn't a straight drama. Midnight in Paris is filled with romance, nostalgia, magic, and whimsy. It's an entirely enjoyable experience. You wouldn't think that Owen Wilson would be a great stand-in for the Woody Allen-esque character in a Woody Allen movie, but his cadence and energy are great fit for Allen's dialogue. Come to think of it, Wilson's struggling thief in Bottle Rocket isn't that far off from Allen's characters in Take the Money and Run or Small Time Crooks.

I get to watch a version of my dream of the early 60s in American Graffiti and Mad Men, though the latter downplays any nostalgia for that time period. If I ever was able to wander back to that time I'd like to be able to come back to my time as well. If I spent all my time back there what would I have to be nostalgic for?