THE LOVE PARADE
PARAMOUNT, 1929 | BLACK AND WHITE, 107 MINUTES
DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER: ERNST LUBITSCH SCREENPLAY: ERNEST VAJDA AND GUY BOLTON, BASED ON THE PLAY LE PRINCE CONSORT BY LÉON XANROF AND JULES CHANCEL SONGS: VICTOR SCHERTZINGER (MUSIC) AND CLIFFORD GREY (LYRICS) STARRING: MAURICE CHEVALIER (COUNT ALFRED RENARD), JEANETTE MACDONALD (QUEEN LOUISE), LUPINO LANE (JACQUES), LILLIAN ROTH (LULU), EUGENE PALLETTE (WAR MINISTER), E. H. CALVERT (AMBASSADOR), LIONEL BELMORE (PRIME MINISTER), BEN TURPIN (LACKEY), YOLA D’AVRIL (PAULETTE), JEAN HARLOW (WOMAN IN THEATER BOX [UNCREDITED])
The government of a mythical kingdom orders a roguish count to woo the country’s unmarried queen.
Naughty yet nice, this game changer among early musicals still retains a great deal of its original champagne sparkle. In mid-1929, during the movie musical’s chaotic childhood, Ernst Lubitsch decided that there should be a different path. Instead of all the Broadway Melody and Jazz Singer clones then being made, the master of sophisticated silent comedy created a lavish, stylish operetta filled with witty and clever touches and graced with two brilliant stars. Maurice Chevalier had made a sensational U.S. film debut several months earlier in Innocents of Paris, which was good only because of him. Here, with worthy material, he triumphed. So did his costar. Jeanette MacDonald had appeared in a number of Broadway shows, and this would be her spectacular entrance into movies. With the stars’ singing and personalities, an elaborate production, a fine score, and ceaseless wit and innuendo, this was one of the year’s major successes.
The Love Parade is the first sound film to approximate the elegance and grace of the silent comedies made by Lubitsch and his many imitators. It also demonstrates the huge strides made by filmmakers in the eight busy months since The Broadway Melody. The camera moves fluidly, the actors are at ease with the dialogue, the background scoring is sparkling, and the director is fully in control of the situation from the chic opening credits onward.
Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier
How much assurance does Lubitsch have? After Chevalier sings “Paris, Stay the Same,” his valet (Lupino Lane) gets a chorus, and another goes to his dog, who barks through the song. This, at a time when many actors were having trouble locating the microphones and speaking their lines. Then there’s the way the director is constantly teasing the spectator with all manner of racy possibilities. At one point, as Chevalier begins to tell a risqué anecdote, Lubitsch moves the camera to outside a closed window so he can be seen and not heard, then goes back indoors for a punch line that leaves a viewer to guess how spicy it got in between. Later, Chevalier looks directly out at the audience to sing “Nobody’s Using It Now,” making it elegantly obvious that he’s bemoaning his sexual frustration. It’s clear, too, why MacDonald was considered the “lingerie queen” of early talkies—she sings “Dream Lover” in scanty nightclothes while getting out of bed as a flock of handmaidens provide backup. The other songs are equally adept in connecting the characters and the plot and also the sexual politics—which, it should be remembered, are more of their time than of a later age, and definitely all in fun. Some more prudish viewers, obviously not amused by Lubitsch’s approach, wrote to Paramount to complain about it. As it turned out, this was exactly the kind of protest that would lead to the powerful and censorious Motion Picture Production Code.
Paramount Pictures founder and president Adolph Zukor, with director Ernst Lubitsch on the set
A few viewers not accustomed to early talkies might find The Love Parade a bit stodgy in a few places. More, however, will see exactly why this film was so popular and influential, how advanced it was for its time, and why after many years it continues to be a major treat. Chevalier and MacDonald both went on to more triumphs, as did Lubitsch, yet their work here remains vital, accomplished, and in major ways as fresh as ever.
WHAT’S MORE
The Love Parade was as much a revelation to people in the movie industry as to the general public. After seeing it, Greta Garbo was so overcome that she walked out of the theater and sat on a curb, silently marveling that, as she put it, “such a film could be made.” Then she drove to Lubitsch’s house and flung roses at him in ecstatic gratitude. A decade later, director and star teamed to make Ninotchka, one of the best films of either’s career.
Maurice Chevalier is perhaps most familiar to audiences for films, like Gigi (1958), that he made as a senior citizen. Jeanette MacDonald, for her part, is known far better for her later films with Nelson Eddy, not as a sexy star who runs around in her underwear. Thus, along with its many other virtues, The Love Parade is valuable for presenting both stars as audiences first knew them: he as a devastating lady-killer, she as the complete opposite of a buttoned-up prima donna.
Edgar Norton and Maurice Chevalier
Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier
MUSICALLY SPEAKING
Victor Schertzinger, who wrote the music, was a composer only some of the time. More often, he was recognized as a major-league film director, with successes like Redskin (1929), One Night of Love (1934), and Road to Singapore (1940). Most of his Love Parade songs were too tied to the action to work as stand-alone hits, but the gorgeous “Dream Lover” is an exception. With Schertzinger’s sinuous melody and some perilous high notes, it’s a fairly difficult song to perform, let alone as well as Jeanette MacDonald did here, live on the set.