One Hour with You

In the second of their four films together and the only one in which they start out as man and wife, Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald play a happily married couple who face a comic crisis in their marriage when Jeanette announces she's going to be visited by an old friend in Genevieve Tobin in One Hour With You.

What she doesn't know is that Tobin and Maurice have had a flirtatious rendezvous in one of those legendary speedy Paris taxi cabs. Tobin as Mitzi is one saucy wench whose marriage to Roland Young is coming to an end. The only question remaining is who will be caught in a compromising position first for the sake of the alimony.

The whole thing is directed with typical continental charm by Ernest Lubitsch replete with various things in the film identified as the Lubitsch touch. My favorite of those is when Genevieve gets Dr. Chevalier to make a house call, you see a shot of her feet kicking off her shoes and then wiggling in anticipation.

Oscar Straus and Leo Robin wrote most of the music, but the title song was written Richard Whiting with lyrics by Leo Robin. It's introduced during a nightclub scene by radio singer Donald Novis who occasionally did film and stage roles and then sung by nearly all the principals in the cast. Jeanette made a good selling RCA Victor recording of it.

Maurice Chevalier got to sing Oh That Mitzi which both advances the plot of the film as he tells of his dilemma between his wife Colette{MacDonald), but Oh That Mitzi and is a number perfectly suiting his style. It was part of his nightclub act forever after.

Genevieve Tobin is great as the saucy Mitzi and filmgoers probably know her best as the dowager Mrs. Chisholm who was held captive by Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest. Tobin had to be one talented lady, that's quite a difference in parts between One Hour With You and The Petrified Forest.

One cannot ignore Charlie Ruggles a rather timid suitor who is so hoping to get Jeanette on the rebound from Maurice. He's got some very funny scenes with her.

One Hour With You is one of those sophisticated comedies depicting a world gone by. I'm not even sure in Europe if they still dress in tuxedo for dinner.

I taped this one off UK TV in 1988 on the off chance it was good, kept it and have seen it about 10 times since. I wonder if a remastered DVD would be a little less murky as this is in places. Although a notch down from "Trouble in Paradise" it would still make it a worthy bookend, same director in Lubitsch, same studio, same year, same lightheartedness. Or maybe a triple bill with "Love me tonight", Mamoulian's masterpiece for my money, or a foursome with Sternberg's "Blonde Venus" if you feel in an even more arty mood.

The plot is pretty straightforward, turning the unfaithful wife and cuckolded husband scenario on its head with Roland Young (and his maid) pleased at the situation instead of demanding a duel to the death with Chevalier. The climax seems a little awkwardly handled, but ultimately the end credits plus a final snatch of the theme make it OK. And the music is brilliant and witty, helped by Paramount's brash Orchestra producing some marvellously angular but tuneful interpretations - even with the background noises (and similar in this respect also to the non-musical TIP).

Lubitsch re-used the plot from his film "The Marriage Circle", a silent with Adolphe Menjou, and although it has some fine moments is nowhere near as classy as the talkie version is. Being silent it has a completely different ambiance, but it's fun guessing where the songs should go.

All of the a/m films are sublime and should be on prescription!

Ernst Lubitsch was a great director who very rarely made a dud. While One Hour With You may not be as good as The Merry Widow, Heaven Can Wait and The Shop Around the Corner it is still well worth watching and is a very good film overall. The film does drag a little towards the end and the ending is rather abrupt and awkwardly staged. But One Hour With You also has many pleasures, a case of the pros far outweighing the cons. One Hour With You is stylishly photographed with elegant period detail, and Lubitsch directs with his usual classiness. The songs are just great and generally do deserve to be much better known, the title song is the most well-known one and it is a catchy one indeed but we mustn't forget the risqué(for the time) Oh Mitzi, the witty Three Times a Day or the charming We Will Always Be Sweethearts. The dialogue is funny and sophisticated, the rhyming was really inspired and Maurice Chavalier's talking to the camera could have been annoying but was far from it. The story is very fluffy but very light-hearted, warm-hearted and sweet and nowhere near as improbable as the story for Monte Carlo(a better film than it's given credit for but the weakest Lubitsch I've seen so far). One Hour With You is beautifully acted especially from the sassy and beguiling Genevieve Tobin. Maurice Chevalier oozes wit and easy-going charm and avoids being creepy in Oh Mitzi despite the risqué/suggestive material. Jeanette MacDonald radiates on screen and sings beautifully in We Will Always Be Sweethearts(sad that she didn't sing more) and Roland Young is deliciously ironic and induces fireworks whenever he appears. All in all, a very good film if not among the best from Lubitsch. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Ernst Lubitsch (with some "assist" from George Cukor) directs this charming and witty farce which gives Maurice Chevalier a chance to steal the film from his very talented co-stars, including Jeanette MacDonald and Genevieve Tobin.

His rendering of "Oh, that Mitzi!" (he breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the camera--as in "Gigi" years later), and "Three Times A Day" remain the highlights of the film. The story itself is pure fluff, a tale about a happily married couple who each have a fling but remain faithful to each other for the finale. Of course, it's all pre-code morality done with style and wit.

The sprinkling of songs also includes some rhyming dialogue, always a clever mix of words and music. Jeanette's voice sounds tinny here and there's no use made of her operatic range as the songs are simple and sweet, but she's charming and appealing as Chevalier's happily married wife. It's hard to see why she couldn't suspect that her best friend Genevieve Tobin would want to seduce her husband when the woman is such an obvious flirt. But of course, the story is strictly fluff and full of many improbable moments. The rather abrupt ending seems an awkward way to resolve the whole marital situation.

Worth viewing to watch Maurice Chevalier deliver one of his most satisfying performances, especially good when addressing the audience with his problems. The catchy title song by Richard Whiting gets some nice singing moments from several players.

Director Ernst Lubitsch made some marvelous films during the 1930s. Because they were so deftly created and the films seemed so magical and perfect, many have dubbed these films as having "the Lubitsch touch". Well, ONE HOUR WITH YOU does have many of these touches, but to me it just didn't have the magic that his best films, such as TROUBLE IN PARADISE, had--though it is still a very good film.

The film begins with a deliriously happy married couple, Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. They defy the stereotype that married people are dull and their love wanes--that is, until MacDonald's best friend, Mitzi (Genevieve Tobin), arrives. Mitzi is man-crazy and again and again Jeanette foolishly forces her husband to be with Mitzi alone. Eventually, he succumbs to her horny overtures--though the film seems to imply they didn't go very far. In retaliation, Jeanette grabs the first pipsqueak she can find (Charlie Ruggles) and sows a few (a very few) oats of her own. Can this couple survive? Will they live happily ever after? Sure, you betcha.

This film is a musical. While none of the numbers are especially memorable and occasionally Ms. MacDonald hit some notes that made my skin crawl, the songs were very good--very light and simple with excellent lyrics. In addition, at times the dialog was spoken in rhyme--though this confused me. At times, they rhymed beautifully (almost like a Dr. Seuss book) but then the dialog became much more normal. Later, they started rhyming again. I think they should have either stuck with this or dropped it altogether. As it was, it just seemed like they lost interest in this and forgot to keep rhyming. One thing I really did like, though, was how Chevalier occasionally broke character and spoke to the camera--like he was having a dialog with the audience. This was clever and the film had enough good moments to recommend it, but still it doesn't rank among the director's very best.

By the way, I saw this on DVD but was saddened to see it only had the American version. According to IMDb both MacDonald and Chevalier also filmed a French version at the same time, as Ms. MacDonald was apparently fluent in French!