The Love Parade (1929)

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Starring Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Lillian Roth, Lupino Lane, E. H. Calvert, Eugene Pallette, Lionel Belmore, Edgar Norton.

Lubitsch’s first full talkie is a souped-up libretto from French stage play Le Prince Consort. Chevalier plays a scandalous playboy of a count who’s to be dressed down by the infuriated queen (MacDonald), but it’s not long before they’re more interested in a different sort of dressing down. Lubitsch pulled out all the stops with opulent sets and costuming, ambitious musical numbers, and a sub-romance between kooky Roth and kookier Lane that threatens to upstage the leads (and does). Not without humor and charm on the fringes, but the affair doesn’t really pick up until after the queen and count are married…before briefly bogging down again with a musty battle-of-the-sexes (boy, that honeymoon was over quick). Aside from the okay “Dream Lover” and the saucy “Let’s Be Common,” the songs are washouts, and it’s apparent that Lubitsch was easily bored by them. Two other firsts: Chevalier’s first English-language hit, and MacDonald’s first film period.

64/100