Un'ora d'amore

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!

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

The only thing wrong with this delightful movie is that it's been so hard to find on video or DVD over the years. Despite the ongoing fame of the stars and the director, even museum screenings are rare. I was lucky enough to see One Hour with You recently along with an earlier gem called The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), another saucy Pre-Code musical comedy starring Chevalier and directed by Lubitsch, and they complemented each other nicely. The earlier film is set primarily in a mythical kingdom, populated with the sort of uniformed dignitaries and nobles Lubitsch loved to send up, while One Hour with You takes place in contemporary Paris-- although "Paramount Paris" may be the more apt phrase. Production values are comparable, and the films even share a couple of supporting players in similar roles. Still, while both are highly enjoyable, I feel One Hour with You is the more satisfying film, and for me the main reason is that Chevalier's character is so much more sympathetic here.

The cheerful Chevalier of the early '30s is always interested in one thing only, and Lubitsch's slyly suggestive material leaves absolutely no doubt as to what it might be, but that doesn't mean his Gallic lover roles were all the same. Chevalier's Smiling Lieutenant is an arrogant skirt-chaser, as obsessively horny as Pepe Le Pew and equally convinced of his own irresistibility, while in One Hour with You our leading man is more the pursued than the pursuer, perhaps a little flustered by the chase, and frankly he's more likable when he's less sure of himself. Chevalier plays a prosperous doctor, happily married to Jeanette MacDonald. They share a stylish modern home and seem quite pleased with each other, but when Jeanette's aggressively sexy friend Mitzi shows up her husband is tempted to stray; he's flattered and gratified but also perplexed by Mitzi's relentless pursuit. The good doctor's mixed feelings are obvious, and amusing. At key moments when he's alone he'll turn and address the audience, even confessing that he's confused about what to do next, and this uncertainty is an appealing character trait. Cinematically, it also marks a rare occasion (Groucho notwithstanding) when a movie character's direct address to the camera is a welcome and successful device. And it underscores the point that Chevalier Bewildered is more attractive than Chevalier the Grinning Tom Cat.

Speaking of attractive, Jeanette MacDonald is a revelation here. Those who know her only from San Francisco, or who're familiar with her prim, tightly controlled performances in the operettas she made with Nelson Eddy, will be startled to see how loose, appealing, and sexy she could be with this director and this co-star. She's adept with comedy, and surprisingly moving in the last scenes when the situation turns more serious. Jeanette's supporting cast isn't half bad, either: Charlie Ruggles is hilarious (especially when he sings) as Jeanette's long-suffering, rejected suitor, while Roland Young is a stand-out, as usual, as the cuckold professor who seems both furious and oddly amused by his situation, and whose every uttered syllable conveys icy, carefully nuanced irony. Young was one of those rare players like Claude Rains who could take a secondary role and deftly steal the show. Here, he makes his first appearance early on and returns only intermittently thereafter, but he makes every moment count.

In his day director Ernst Lubitsch was almost as famous as the stars of his films; his distinctive, sophisticated, merry style was enjoyed by audiences and celebrated by critics. Like Hitchcock or Sturges, Lubitsch himself is a presence in his work. We know from the opening moments of One Hour with You's first scene exactly who is at the helm of this picture, when a rotund Prefect of Police (George Barbier) delivers a speech to his men, warning them that people come to Paris for One Reason Only-- and coincidentally, it's the same thing that so concerns our leading man. This is fine with the Chief, of course, as long as these tourists are willing to pay hard cash. The Chief's speech is delivered in rhyme, a device which recurs throughout at key moments, usually as a lead-in to songs. The title tune is the most memorable one and became a standard, but the others serve their function: each song tells us something about the lead characters' state of mind while offering Lubitsch-style wit about the film's central themes: the joys and drawbacks of marriage and the lure of extra-marital dalliance.

Anyone seeking a good definition of the "Lubitsch Touch" could profitably begin with this movie. Still, Maurice Chevalier is very much the star of this show, and in my opinion he was never better, never more charming, than in One Hour with You.

P.S. Winter 2007: I'm pleased to add that this film will soon be available in a DVD box set, along with three other Lubitsch rarities from the Pre-Code era. Paradise for the director's fans awaits!

I first saw ONE HOUR WITH YOU (1932) one magical evening in the summer of 1987. I was 19 years old; I ditched work, and drove up to UCLA on the strength of an LA Times blurb. I knew very little about Lubitsch, and had pre-conceived notions about MacDonald and Chevalier. ONE HOUR WITH YOU was one half of a perfect double bill that night with Mamoulian's fantastic LOVE ME TONIGHT (also from 1932). Both films blew me away: they have the special, magical glow of other great Paramount films from that era; the humor is racy and modern; the songs are memorable and funny; and the playing by everyone is exquisite. I've always thought of that night as being one of the best nights at the movies that I've ever had. Both films are enchanting -- I can still remember people running to talk to each other after the screenings of how much they loved them... The audience's joy was palpable throughout.

Of course, as time has past, I've caught up with the rest of Lubitsch's work -- but this film for me is the tops. (TROUBLE IN PARADISE comes a very close second.) Jeannette MacDonald for me was such a revelation. She's both knowing and naive, sexy and sweet... her final confrontation with Chevalier ("...if you're a Don Juan... than I'm a Cleopatra!") is really extraordinary: she utterly transforms herself from a mousy housewife to a believably sexy and silly siren within the span of a few seconds. (Her performance here is similar to that of Mia Farrow's performance in ALICE (1990), when Farrow first comes on to Joe Mantegna's character...) Genevieve Tobin also deserves mention as the sexually insatiable Mitzi. Her first encounter with Chevalier where she is coming on to him in the back of the tax cab ("Let's put our newspapers away and let us face that facts!") is a fantastic bit of acting. And of course Maurice Chevalier is wonderful as the doctor. I especially love his shocked, mock-horror expressions when his two women are whispering to each other, looking at him ("He can...?" "No..." "I tell you he can!")

The film is interesting also for being an early musical, before the genre had the defining imprint of Busby Berkeley and Fred Astaire . It's a musical-comedy hybrid, and as such -- there's no other musical out there like it: the film employs rhyming verse, MacDonald's operatic trilling, playful double-entendres, and Chavalier's directly-addressing the audience. No musical numbers per se (in the traditional sense), but a barrage of musical elements that make this film unique.

The only time this film has been released on home video was in 1997 when Universal briefly released a laserdisc box set called "The Lubitsch Touch," along with other classics, such as THE LOVE PARADE (1929), MONTE CARLO (1930), THE SMILING LIEUTENANT (1931), and DESIGN FOR LIVING (1933). Universal needs to get on the stick and release this on DVD! Even though this film was nominated for Best Picture of 1931/32, it's barely known today. Lubitsch's TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932) and Mamoulian's LOVE ME TONIGHT are revived more often than this. One reason for this critical oversight might hinge on the film's authorship: George Cukor began the film directing from Lubitsch's own ructions, only later to be replaced by Lubitsch himself, mid-way through the production. Cukor took Lubitsch to court and ultimately won a co-directing credit -- though it's next to impossible to tell who directed what: it's Lubitsch's picture, without a doubt.

Being such a huge fan of a film most people haven't seen or heard of has led me to one special meeting with a fellow enthusiast of ONE HOUR WITH YOU: I was working at a poster shop in San Francisco, selling some film posters to David Packard who owns the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto. His was going to be showing ONE HOUR WITH YOU in the upcoming month, and I mentioned to that it might be my favorite American film. He said (or sung to me): "Me too! Why don't we start singing right now!?" (And then he broke into a few bars of "Oh, That Mitzi!") He said that it was one of his all-time favorites, and also told me that he feels that it's his duty to show every person he knows or lives in the Bay area ONE HOUR WITH YOU before he dies!~ I wish that Universal Home Video felt the same way!

ONE HOUR WITH YOU (Paramount, 1932), directed by Ernst Lubitsch (co-directed by George Cukor), premiered on American Movie Classics March 11, 1993, as part of its annual film preservation. Prior to that, it was shown on the Movie Channel in 1991. A musical comedy, it reunites Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, stars of THE LOVE PARADE (Paramount, 1929), offering them a rare opportunity playing husband and wife from start to finish, and an amusing couple at that.

As for the plot: Chevalier plays Doctor Andre Bertier, happily married man, who comes upon the flirtatious but much married Mitzi Olivier (Genevieve Tobin), who turns out to be his wife, Colette's (MacDonald) best friend in town for a visit. Mitzi's no-nonsense husband (Roland Young) suspects his wife for infidelity and has hired Detective Henry Dornier (Richard Carle) to follow her. While Mitzi makes a play for Andre, Andre's best friend, Adolph (Charles Ruggles), best man at his wedding, does the same for Colette. Situations become involved when Andre finds himself accused of having an affair not with Mitzi but with Mademoiselle Martel (Josephine Dunn) and later on, Professor Olivier visiting Andre and naming him as correspondent in his divorce trial.

Songs by Oscar Struss and Leo Robin, with interpolated music by Richard Whiting, include: "But Spring is Here" (introduced by George Barbier); "What a Little Thing Like a Wedding Ring Will Do" (sung by Chevalier and MacDonald); "We Will Always Be Sweethearts" (sung by MacDonald); "Three Times a Day" (sung by Chevalier and Genevieve Tobin); "One Hour With You" (sung by Donald Novis, Tobin, Charlie Ruggles, MacDonald and Chevalier); "It Was Only a Dream Kiss," "We Will Always Be Sweethearts" (Chevalier and MacDonald) and "What Would You Do?" (Chevalier).

This pre-production code comedy with singing was previously done in the silent era as THE MARRIAGE CIRCLE (Warner Brothers, 1924) starring Adolphe Menjou, Florence Vidor, Monte Blue and Marie Prevost, also directed by Lubitsch, which was distributed on video cassette in the 1990s. This remake was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture of 1932, but in spite of its popularity, this is nearly a forgotten movie. While Jeanette MacDonald is remembered mainly for her costume operettas at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and singing duets with Nelson Eddy in their eight films together spanning from 1935 to 1942, ONE HOUR WITH YOU offers a different Jeanette MacDonald, singing contemporary songs in modern day Paris. At times she's very funny which is a shame that she never was given the opportunity to appear in a "screwball" comedy, but this, being a "drawing room" or "sophisticated" comedy will do. Risqué dialog all around adds to the amusements, with Chevalier occasionally narrating the story to the audience, looking directly into the camera in the way comedian George Burns did on his "George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" on television back in the 1950s.

While a delightful 78 minutes, the next Chevalier and MacDonald musical, LOVE ME TONIGHT (Paramount, 1932) ranks the very best of their four collaborations as a team. Available on DVD as of 2008, and on Turner Classic Movies where it premiered February 23, 2010. (****)