Even though Jeanette MacDonald gets to make light fun of her sometimes shrill singing voice (where her lyrics are sometimes impossible to understand) and has a brief can-can musical number (showing off a rarely seen ability to dance), the movie surrounding those moments is colorless, even though it was grandly photographed in color. All the color does is show off her flaming red hair, which in the final is covered by a hat that looks like a pepperoni pizza with extra mozzarella. The fact that this is set in 1890's London and Vienna rather than Italy makes her choice of millinery attire somewhat odd.
In London, she is a singer being coached by operetta composer Nelson Eddy, obviously in love with him even though she is engaged to marry the stuffy Edward Ashley. She suddenly decides to break off her engagement to Ashley and runs off to Vienna where as a street singer, she is broke enough to trade singing lessons from a grocer whose untalented daughter sings like the chicken she is making the exchange for. She is noticed by the lecherous Baron George Sanders who arranges for her to get a job at a casino while Eddy tries to sell his unproduced operetta. Ashley arrives in Vienna as Sanders is making unwelcome advances to her with his new wife, a babbling female with a horrendous speech impediment, obviously added just to make her already annoying character seem even more annoying. When a drunken Sanders goes too far in his pursuit of the married MacDonald, Eddy steps in, setting up for a similar finale that we had already seen them do in "Maytime" and would be done better in MacDonald's remake of "Smilin' Through".
The ending probably had ladies weeping in 1940 but is so predictable. Sanders' character so unlikable that it makes him difficult to watch. He was best playing villains who were so urbane and sophisticated that their suave villainy was just one characteristic to their multi-layered personalities. The stars struggle with many bits made to be comical (which essentially stop the plot for shtick) but somehow the results are as empty as Sanders' baron's heart. Practically every character actor of eastern European decent (Herman Bing, Felix Bressart) pop in to predictable effect. W.S. Van Dyke, after such a unique career highlighted by mostly non-musicals, seemed an odd choice for this air-filled soufflé, so the result is even less than mixed.
In London, she is a singer being coached by operetta composer Nelson Eddy, obviously in love with him even though she is engaged to marry the stuffy Edward Ashley. She suddenly decides to break off her engagement to Ashley and runs off to Vienna where as a street singer, she is broke enough to trade singing lessons from a grocer whose untalented daughter sings like the chicken she is making the exchange for. She is noticed by the lecherous Baron George Sanders who arranges for her to get a job at a casino while Eddy tries to sell his unproduced operetta. Ashley arrives in Vienna as Sanders is making unwelcome advances to her with his new wife, a babbling female with a horrendous speech impediment, obviously added just to make her already annoying character seem even more annoying. When a drunken Sanders goes too far in his pursuit of the married MacDonald, Eddy steps in, setting up for a similar finale that we had already seen them do in "Maytime" and would be done better in MacDonald's remake of "Smilin' Through".
The ending probably had ladies weeping in 1940 but is so predictable. Sanders' character so unlikable that it makes him difficult to watch. He was best playing villains who were so urbane and sophisticated that their suave villainy was just one characteristic to their multi-layered personalities. The stars struggle with many bits made to be comical (which essentially stop the plot for shtick) but somehow the results are as empty as Sanders' baron's heart. Practically every character actor of eastern European decent (Herman Bing, Felix Bressart) pop in to predictable effect. W.S. Van Dyke, after such a unique career highlighted by mostly non-musicals, seemed an odd choice for this air-filled soufflé, so the result is even less than mixed.