Rose Marie (1936)

"I thought all this would make you more merciful"

"Don't ever think that Nature is merciful.Nature is the cruelest policeman.When an animal sickens, the others turn on him and kill him"

            Rose Marie is the second Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy film I have seen. Quite fitting that this the second of the pair’s films I have seen and this was the second film they had made together. Like all their films this is an operetta this one set in the Canadian woods.

            Marie de Flor (MacDonald) is a famous Canadian stage actress. Her latest show is a musical of Romeo and Juliet and it is a huge hit. A rich man named Teddy wants to marry her. Marie does not want to marry him she says she has everything she could want in fame and money. What she really wants is her brother John (James Stewart) out of jail. John was put in jail for having a gun that someone used to shoot a man. Marie is upset that he is not being released for the crime he did not commit.

            Marie has the Premier of Quebec to her apartment. The staff has to get everything prepared in a hurry. Myerson, her agent, can see that something is worrying Marie. She said she will tell him her trouble another time. A comes to the apartment. He gives Marie a ring that belongs to John. The man tells Marie that her brother has escaped from prison and is now hiding out in the woods in the Quebec wilderness. Marie wants to get to John to help him as soon as she can.

            Marie arrives at a port town in Quebec. The small town is rough and hickish for Marie. There are Indians and half breeds all over the town. A man named Boniface has been assigned as her guide. He is not a very good man he steals Marie’s wallet when he saw how much money she was carrying around with her. The owner of the hotel tells her to go to the Mounties to possibly get her wallet back. Out on the streets Marie panics when she sees a wanted poster for John. Marie cannot find Boniface and her money which she needs. She goes into a saloon and asks for a job which she lands. No one pays attention to Marie at first because she is singing an opera song. Then she starts singing a new tune that the locals can understand and they turn their attention to her. A man named Sgt. Bruce (Eddy) had been put on her brother’s case after he escaped. He followed Marie out to Quebec. He talks to her and asks her questions and even takes her to an annual Indian fest. Marie does not tell St. Bruce the real reason she is in town. At the fest she finds Boniface and makes him give her money back and to be her guide.

            Bruce falls in love with Marie. He was talking to someone about her and he realized her last name in English means Flower. Bruce puts two and two together and knows the real reason Marie is in town. Out in the woods Marie sings a song. Bruce hears her and picks up her trail. He saves her from drowning after she falls off her horse in a lake. Bruce makes a camp for the night. Marie does not want to stay with him she is anxious to find Boniface and get to her brother. Bruce knows she will come to his camp and she does when she gets scared of a deer. He tells Marie to give him her clothes to dry off. When he gets the clothes he looks for any evidence of John.

            Marie gets away from Bruce and finds someone who will bring her to John. Bruce catches up with them. He had planned on taking her to John he made the whole thing a game. The whole situation is made harder because they really loved each other.

            Back in the city, Marie is in the middle of performing on stage when she thinks she can hear Bruce singing to her. She collapses on stage. For months Marie has not sung a note she says she does not care if ever sings again. Everyone knows she is saying that because she is heartbroken. Out of nowhere Marie thinks she can hear Bruce sing. When she turns around Bruce is really there singing to her.

            I adore Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald together. I love their chemistry. From the little I have read about MacDonald she and Eddy were apparently in love in real life so their chemistry on screen was very real. As I did with Sweethearts I fast forwarded through the musical numbers. I love musicals but the opera music is just too much for me so I skip them. I like Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald as actors better than singers. James Stewart was just at the beginning of his career. It is funny to see him in his early roles. It seems MGM had no idea what to do with Stewart at this time. The same year he was in After the Thin Man and played a not so good character (which was also directed by W.S. Van Dyke). With his looks Stewart could never have been a believable bad guy.

            Rose Marie is dated now but back in 1936 in the Depression this was the perfect kind of film to lift spirits and just to have a good time watching. As I said I enjoyed the acting more than the singing. I really liked the ending for some reason it was a bit cheesy but very sweet. Rose Marie was made for audiences to forget their cares and have fun for its run and even to this day it makes you forget your cares and have fun watching. 

 

Sweehearts (1938)

"Six years with you are like six minutes- six minutes without you are like six years."

            After I saw Love Me Tonight starring Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier I swore I would never sit through one of her films. She got on my nerves so bad I thought she was a bad actress and her operatic singing annoyed me. But what have I wound up doing? I wound up watching another Jeanette MacDonald film. I am a tumblr nerd and most of the Old Hollywood blogs I follow are fans of hers so I got curious and decided to give MacDonald another try. Well I have to admit I am glad that I gave the actress another chance because Sweethearts was so enjoyable and MacDonald was so funny and adorable.

            It is the sixth anniversary of the hit Broadway show Sweethearts. In those six years the lead stars have been real life husband and wife Gwen Marlowe (MacDonald) and Ernest Lane (Nelson Eddy). They love each other more than they did when they first started the show. Every day Ernest leaves little love notes under Gwen’s door and she has kept every single one.

            Before the show runner and stage manager Felix Lehman (Frank Morgan) has his hands full with trying to keep a Hollywood talent agent Norman Trumpett (Reginald Gardiner) from getting close to his leading stars to lure them out west. Without his “kiddies” as he calls Gwen and Ernest, there will be no show.

            After the show all Gwen and Ernest want to do is go out to a quiet little restaurant by themselves without having to hear any of the songs from the show or be bothered by people looking for autographs. Their plan almost works but Felix guilts them into coming to a party he organized for the anniversary. The party turns out to be an extravaganza that is broadcasted live throughout the nation and the pair wind up having to sing a song from the show. Since Trumpett cannot get to them at the theater he calls up the restaurant to have the Lane’s chauffer sent home and he and his chauffer will pick them up. Trumpett’s plan works, he puts the irresistible idea of leaving New York and Broadway to go out to Hollywood to make pictures at their leisure in their heads. As soon as Gwen and Ernest walk through the door of their home they are immediately bombarded by their families. Both sets of parents were once stars of Broadway and never let each other forget that as they act all theatrically crazy and conceited. The parents also have Ernest and Gwen’s life planned for them without even consulting them. They have enough and call Trumpett to tell them they are going to Hollywood.

            Felix is distraught over his “kiddies” abandoning him. He, the writer of the play Leo, the conductor, and another manager want to find a way to keep Ernest and Gwen in the city. Leo comes up with the idea to tell Gwen about a play he has written and to use Ernest’s letters. As Gwen is packing Leo comes to her saying he has a new idea for a play he wants to run by her. Gwen listens and she recognizes some lines from her husband’s notes to her. She asks Leo where he got them and he says from a lady in the strictest confidence because they were written by a married man.

            Gwen has a fit thinking Ernest was writing the same letters he wrote to her to another woman. She thinks who the other woman could be and then realizes she is their personal assistant Kay Jordan. She just happens to look outside when Ernest picks Kay up and kisses her. He runs upstairs to tell Gwen that Kay has decided to go to Hollywood with them but Gwen is too upset to be bothered by him. Gwen walks into Kay’s to looks around for any letters. She sees Ernest slip a note under the door saying that if she were to look in the mirror she would see his favorite person. Gwen storms out of the room. Kay walks in and so does Ernest and he asks her if she got the note with the saying to be engraved on a vanity case for Gwen.

            On the night of their last show Trumpett comes backstage with a group of lawyers with the Hollywood contract for the couple to sign. Gwen tells Trumpett she no longer wants to go out to Hollywood but Ernest will happily go out. Ernest comes in and Gwen just lays into him and he has no idea why. Their confrontation forces them to miss their opening for the first time since the show started.

            Felix and Leo’s plan works. Felix has another idea using the two understudies. He breaks Gwen and Ernest up sending them each out on their own tour of Sweethearts with the understudies. The couple are sad and lonely without the other. Gwen’s mother reads the review of Leo’s new play that was based on the situation he put Gwen and Ernest in. Gwen realizes that that was the same situation she and Ernest and in. Ernest apparently read the same article and they each try to call each other but get a busy signal. Eventually Ernest gets through and they apologize to one another.

            Back in New York Ernest and Gwen go to Felix to tell them they are going out to California but once again he guilts them into coming back to the show.

            The story was so cute and so much fun to watch. It sounds like a mushy romantic musical comedy MGM pushed out by the thousands and it is but it is not overly romantic or silly and none of the acting by any of the actors seemed forced.

            Jeanette MacDonald was a panic. Sometimes she was a bit too much but for the most part she was so funny. Her facial expressions cracked me up especially when she gives this big phony smile to Ernest when they are singing a song at the piano. Nelson Eddy was good but I really did not think anything of him as an actor. MacDonald and Eddy’s chemistry was fantastic you can completely tell that they liked each other romantically in real life. The one part I cracked up with both of them was when Gwen and Ernest just want to go up to best. As they head for the staircase they make like they are two old tired people and put on these funny faces. This is odd but I could have totally have done without their singing. I know that their films together were musicals but their singing started to bother me after a while. I like both of them very much as actors I liked their scenes were they were just talking. There was one number that I liked called “Pretty as a Picture” because they were both very good and funny in it.    

 

            The rest of the cast was very good. It was cool to see Frank Morgan and Ray Bolger in a short scene together since the next year they were be in The Wizard of Oz together.

            Sweethearts was so much fun to sit through. I am glad that I gave Jeanette MacDonald another chance and I look forward to seeing more of her films with and without Nelson Eddy. Sweethearts is a cute musical comedy that does not go overboard story wise and makes you feel so happy when it is over.