Maytime

Leave it to the greatest movie studio of them all, MGM, to deliver to the world in l937 this unsurpassed musical joy. While all the other movies were celebrating swing and tap dance and the Big Band sound, "Maytime" comes along and when it was released, it took the world by storm. Why? Because it shows how a powerful studio massed together all of its brilliant talent onto this film. Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy would never surpass their performances here. Adrian's incredible costumes for McDonald are stunning. The lush photography, set designs and decor of late l9th century Paris are mind-boggling. And of course, the unforgettable music. You listen again and again to the magnfiicent scoring and vocal arrangements and never forget them. The ultimate sequence is the fabulous "Czaritza" that comes towards the end. McDonald and Eddy are backed up by a fantastic Russian choir. The pre-production on this one movie is amazing. Years in the planning, it was originally begun in l936 as a Technicolor spectacular. But after Irving Thalberg died, Louis B. Mayer chopped the budget in half and demanded "Maytime" be shot in black and white. Whatever the outcome, this movie can enchant even anti-music lovers. Now, let's hope it appears on DVD real soon.

I won't repeat what some of the other reviews have said, other than to add my perspective. This was a marvelous film, made with great skill in every way, from screenplay to songs. It is also, along with "Waterloo Bridge" and "How Green Was My Valley" (see reviews), one of the saddest movies I have ever seen.

Of course it manipulates us into reaching for the hankies, but it does a good job at it. I consider myself a big cynical guy, but this movie! Man. I saw it many years ago, and to this day if someone mentions the word "sweetheart", I think of the song "Will You Remember?" and start getting teary-eyed!

Yes, I have it on video. I ALSO HAVE THE RADIO BROADCAST! In 1944, the Lux Radio Theater reprised the popular film in an hour long broadcast with the original stars. The adaptation was wonderfully done. The only change of note was Nelson Eddy sang the rousing French march, "Le Regiment du Sambre et Meuse" instead of Jeanette MacDonald. I downloaded this gem from the Bearshare peer to peer service. It is worth looking for and downloading.

Just don't anyone ever say "Sweethearts" to me - in any context at any time I think of "Maytime" and get sad. Of course some people love those types of films.

One memorable movie. But it made me so sad I almost wish I never saw it. Almost!

This was the third movie done by the "Singing Sweethearts," and it is often considered to be their best. Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy are in their element in this movie as two "star-cross'd lovers"; her as a poor rich girl, and him as a struggling artist. Together they face obligation, yearning, and revenge, all personified by a wonderful John Barrymore.

The music to this movie is excellent...ranging from a playful "Santa Lucia," to the climactic opera set to Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. The achingly bittersweet lover's waltz "Will You Remember" and its reprise at the finale is a memorable tune that will have most music lovers humming it for weeks.

A wonderful love story for all time...the finale will leave many in tears. In fact, the finale to this movie is so poignant that many filmmakers still copy the same structure today.

It's fascinating to read in all the well justified praise (and occasional cavil) lavished on the glorious hodge-podge that is MAYTIME, not one word of the great feature film debut at MGM which the film also represented.

Since MAYTIME - first filmed in 1923 in a version more faithful to the original but as a "silent" film, lacking ALL of the original music - was contractually obligated to ONLY credit music to the great Sigmund Romberg (whose original show it had been when it opened on Broadway on August 16, 1917, to play for a then astounding 492 performances with songs the studio did not want to use like "Jump, Jim Crow"), the studio called in their youngest contracted composer/lyricists (then only 21 and earning a mere - but lordly during the Depression - $200 a week), Bob Wright and George (Chet) Forrest, who would be willing to do virtually the entire score (not allowed to actually compose, but adapting public domain material under chief studio composer - and early Oscar Hammerstein collaborator - Herbert Stothart's supervision). Wright and Forrest were relegated to billing only for "Special Lyrics by..." (and not even acknowledged for THAT by the IMDb, although the credits are there on the screen!). The film's "Best Score" Oscar nomination didn't even go to Romberg or supervising composer Stothart, but to Nat W. Finston, the head of the studio's Music Division!

It was years before "The Boys" would break into the public consciousness with stage adaptations of their own like SONG OF NORWAY and KISMET, and their own (always their first choice) original music for shows like KEAN and GRAND HOTEL, but the result on MAYTIME (including their faux Russian opera for the film, drawn from Tschaikowsky's 5th Symphony, translated from their original English into French by another poet not credited by IBDB - in a talk at the New York Sheet Music Society in 1989, Bob Wright said it was U.S. Sigey, but the screen credits say Gilles Guilbert) was a triumph of craft and carefully catering to the strengths of the stars who they were writing for. Witness in particular a couple numbers ("Song of The Carriage" and a number where Eddy proposes to prepare a ham and egg breakfast for MacDonald) crafted for the limited acting range of Nelson Eddy, giving him something to DO while he sang!

LOTS of great Broadway names worked under almost forgotten under-billed capacities (Larry Hart of Rodgers & Hart fame did lyrics for the Maurice Chevalier MERRY WIDOW!), but Wright & Forrest were among the most prolific and best, and MAYTIME was their first major film "credit." It's only a pity (given the high quality of their few surviving original scores) that in the ways of Hollywood, MAYTIME also "typecast" them into adapting other composers' works for the bulk of their careers.

Because there was nothing suitable in the opera repertoire for a baritone and a soprano to sing together! And Romberg's music wasn't used because it was too expensive; practically everything in the film score was in public domain or composed for the film. Likewise, filming in color was nixed in a cost-cutting move (though, frankly, I can't imagine how this film could be any better in color!) Movie-making is all and always about compromise.

A little research into Herbert Stothart's tonal plan for this film will help you understand it better, if understanding the technicalities will help you appreciate it more. But just enjoy "Maytime" for what it is, not what it isn't. A lovely, opulent, romance treasure. Don't be afraid to like it!