O Eterno D. Juan

Of some interest to opera lovers. Irene Dunne shows off her real-life operatic talents which I'm unqualified to judge. Herman Bing, brother of opera impresario Rudolf Bing, plays a comic Wagnerian tenor and sings a little. Some comic bits about typically temperamental opera stars.

Plot revolves around a romantic triangle with Menjou as an aging opera star in New York, Hamilton as his understudy, and Dunne trying to break into the business. Turns out Dunne and Hamilton had a warm but chaste relationship while studying in Europe.

IMHO this started out to be a bit racier than your average opera flick but the studio got cold feet. Early on, Dunn seeks Menjou's mentorship and possibly more. People keep warning her about his reputation as a womanizer and she keeps saying she doesn't care, she'll do anything to get ahead even though, in the language of the day, she's maintained her "purity." Then this thread disappears and it becomes a tepid battle for her hand in matrimony between the two male leads.

Cliff Edwards has a Lee Tracy type role as a fast-talking PR man that fades away without connecting with the plot too much. Ernest Torrence plays Menjou's manservant as an effeminate sort whose only interest in life seems to be arranging and spying on his employer's love life. Kind of creepy.

I watched this movie because I'm very interested in opera, and in seeing how opera has been portrayed in film. I also enjoy a lot of Irene Dunne's movies.

I was suspicious, though, when I saw that Adolphe Menjou was the romantic lead. He's fine in supporting roles, and even in non- romantic leads. He was, after all, nominated for a leading-man Oscar that same year for his role in *The Front Page*. But I have never been able to see how any woman could have found him even remotely attractive sexually, even back in 1923 when he starred in Chaplin's *A Woman of Paris*.

In this 1931 feature he was 41 years old, and looked every bit of it. That is not to suggest that men 41 and even much older cannot look sexually attractive. We have lots of examples to prove the contrary.

Nor does the age difference between Menjou and Dunne - only 8 years, though it appears greater - bother me. I had no problems with Audrey Hepburn appearing with male leads considerably older than she at the beginning of her career, such as Cary Grant (25 years older) in *Charade*, Gary Cooper (28 years older) in *Love in the Afternoon*, or even Fred Astaire (30 years older) in *Funny Face*.

But, to me, Menjou as a romantic lead looks slimy. It was impossible for me to believe that he had attractive women chasing after him, which he does in this movie. And if you can't buy that, the movie pretty much falls apart, as you can imagine with the title *The Great Lover*.

Dunne is fine as the not-too-scrupulous American soprano who, just back from two years of study in Italy, is hoping to break into opera in New York City and is willing to play with Menjou's expectations in the hope of landing an audition. We get to hear her sing a little, but not nearly enough to make it worth sitting through this picture. A shame. She had a good voice, and it would have been nice to hear what she could have done with some lyric soprano pieces.

The rest of the cast consists of the standard clichés about (Italian) opera singers, conductors, etc. They are all self-centered divas. Nothing new or interesting there.

We get very little in the way of staged opera. No production numbers such as Jeanette MacDonald or Grace Moore got in some of their pictures.

In sum, there really isn't anything here to justify sitting through even the short 71 minute run-time of this picture.

This movie is based on a play that ran 245 performances on Broadway in 1915-16 and then was revived in 1932. There must have been something more to it than this movie suggests, but I can't guess what.

What a delightful movie! For anyone interested in how opera was perceived in the 30's ,this is a must. I heartily urge a DVD release. Adolphe Menjou is superb as the womanizing real life Don GIovanni who finally succumbs to cupids arrow. What a class act. His portrayal is full of ribald humor and sensitivity. Irene Dunne is also superb as the naive young ingénue who will take the opera by storm. There is a host of wonderful supporting players who add to the sparkle of this movie. This is admittedly a very dated film but therein lies the charm. An era of the opera AND cinema is recreated beautifully. This movie will appeal not only to opera fans but also nostalgia buffs. It gives us a sense of operatic and film history. Terrific!

"The Great Lover" has been described by reviewers here as "an opera story" without much story. Although the film takes place in and around opera, I consider it to be about theater. As talkies took the place of silent films, it was natural for filmmakers to look to the stage for great stories. "The Great Lover" may not be a theater classic, but it has a classic story and is written as many of the great plays are--with s simple theme and writing that requires great actors to fill in the spaces between the lines with emotional subtlety. Aldolphe Menjou--as the womanizing opera star Jean Paurel--does a terrific job of conveying each emotional note of his role.

He is aided by Ernest Torrence, who plays Potter, his manservant. Torrence is a delightful actor with great range, whose career would be tragically cut short a few years later. His talents gave him success in both silent films and talkies.

The primary object of Paurel's affections is Diana (Irene Dunne). He woos her like every other woman, then finds she is more to him. Through his passions for her and music, he discovers another side to himself even as he recognizes his true nature.

Though described as a drama, "The Great Lover" feels more like a comedy to me, with elements of many of the basic comedy forms.

While it is not a great film, I thoroughly enjoyed the direction and acting required to make its characters understandable and engaging.

Every cliche in the book. I even heard a character say, "Come up and see my etchings."

In this early talkie the actors still think they are in the silent era. Adolph Menjou is horribly miscast as a latin lover.

The singing is only passable.