Parade d'amour

The Love Parade which was Maurice Chevalier's second feature film is as fresh today as it was in 1929 when it garnered a whole flock of Academy Award nominations. It was Paramount's prestige film of the year, in fact I'm not sure if any other Paramount features got any nominations for anything that year.

It was Ernst Lubitsch's first sound feature film and apparently the man with the famed Lubitsch touch hit the ground running in the new medium with a bunch of players who were also fresh to cinema because of the coming of sound. This was Jeanette MacDonald's film debut and while she's not billed over the title as Chevalier was, her part is every bit as important and as big as his.

Maurice Chevalier has been cutting a wide swath among the ladies of Paris where he's attached to the embassy of Sylvania. So much so that he's been recalled to Sylvania for a reprimand or so he thinks.

Jeanette MacDonald is the new young Queen of Sylvania and she's got to marry for reasons of state. As did many a female monarch, British ones like Victoria, Anne, and the two Marys all took husbands for reasons of state and the method they chose them was as much political as anything else. Only Elizabeth I managed to escape the marriage obligation.

While her diplomats look askance on Chevalier's romantic antics, Jeanette sees in him one grand candidate for marriage. If she's got to get married for reasons of state by God she's going to pick a husband who's going to be ready to romp at a royal command.

The Love Parade's musical score was written by Victor Schertzinger and Clifford Grey. The first notes Jeanette MacDonald ever sang on screen were from her hit song, Dream Lover. It's not the same song as Bobby Darin had a hit in the Fifties from. Film fans will recognize it as the flying theme that Cecil B. DeMille used as background music when Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde were on the trapeze in The Greatest Show On Earth. Jeanette also sings March of the Grenadiers as she reviews her palace guard.

Chevalier's two big numbers were Paris Stays The Same and My Love Parade from whence the title comes. Both were written to suit his grand boulevardier style. Some comic numbers were written for Lupino Lane and Lillian Roth who are the second leads. Lupino is Chevalier's orderly and Roth is one of her maids. They make a cute pair with their impish behavior, aping their masters.

The Love Parade got six Oscar nominations, but did not win in any category and the categories were a lot fewer back in the day. It was up for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Maurice Chevalier, Best Sound Recording, Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography. It also has a lot fewer overacted performances that were the norm in those early sound days. It was as if Ernst Lubitsch instinctively knew what to do with sound in film.

The story is about a Prince Consort and usually the model that is held up is that of Prince Albert for Queen Victoria. But that's not the road Chevalier wants to take.

It's a continental story and yet Lubitsch as he always did, made those stories appealing to American audiences. After 80 years, The Love Parade is still appealing.

"Anything for the Queen" will be my new motto around the household, specifically for my bf. It is good to see that you can learn something from 82+ years ago for the first time.

I've always been a fan of 30's musicals so it was a treat to see this movie for the first time of my life as a historical piece, but also to see the development of musical movies from the start. I am blessed to live within 30 miles of the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto, CA that offers amazing film histories, museum and revivals every week of the year.

I can now see why Chevalier was such a hit -- he had natural wit, humor and timing, something I never witnessed in later films (such as Gigi) where his talents were mostly condensed down to singing.

Jeanette McDonald's operatic singing was extraordinary, but does feel "dated" in the film in contrast to the impeccable performances, timing, dance and humor-filled vaudevillian routines of Lupino Lane and Lillian Roth. IMO they stole the show (sort of like a 'Jack & Karen' team did from "Will & Grace").

I would see the movie again just to check out the servant scenes and a well-deserved nod to the animal trainer for the dog performances. The entire cinema was laughing at the opening goodbye to Paris scene.

Poor Queen Louise – when she is awakened by her attendants she has been dreaming of love but must face another day in the Kingdom of Sylvania without a husband. When an errant military adjutant is recalled from Paris to face her censure she falls for his charms and he for hers, and they marry. But the Queen's new husband is unhappy in the role of obedient consort. Conflict arises but is eventually resolved, as we know it will be in operetta land.

This early Lubitsch musical rates about the same as MONTE CARLO made a year later. The highlight here is the performance of Maurice Chevalier as the consort, a sort of pre-Cary Grant Cary Grant, Gallic style. He has the same effortless magnetism and charm and a certain physical resemblance. Jeanette MacDonald is as good here as in MONTE CARLO, handling songs and dialogue with equal aplomb and looking gorgeous in her filmy gowns. As is usual with Lubitsch, there is a superior supporting cast, here including the formidable Lupino Lane as Chevalier's valet, a sassy and brassy Lillian Roth as Lane's love interest and Edgar Norton as the "Master of Ceremonies," the personification of royal lackey. Another Lubitsch hallmark, the measured depiction of ritualistic daily activities, gets much display in the context of the protocols of a royal palace. The songs by Victor Schertzinger and Clifford Grey are only passable and the primitive sound recording doesn't help in getting them across but the tone of the whole enterprise is so frothy and pleasant that one doesn't mind not hearing all of the lyrics.

When you compare this film to other musicals from the dawn of the sound era like Broadway MELODY the difference is glaring. Lubitsch's camera is liberated and fluid and we get an assortment of physical approaches to song and dance numbers which themselves vary in style from pompous operetta-military to musical hall slapstick to Gilbert-and- Sullivanesque call-and-repeat choral to intimate romantic duets. There is a hint of LOVE ME TONIGHT in some of the ensemble work, particularly with the palace staff. And the script is studded with witty observations and clever comic constructions, some via dialogue, some through pure visuals. THE LOVE PARADE illustrates that in 1929 Rouben Mamoulian (APPLAUSE) was not alone among film directors in recognizing the value of sound as an artistic element and in refusing to subordinate the freedom of the camera to the dictates of miking.

THE LOVE PARADE (Paramount, 1929) directed by Ernst Lubitsch, stars Maurice Chevalier in his second Hollywood musical (the first being 1929s "Innocents of Paris") and his first of four opposite Jeanette MacDonald in her screen debut. Jeanette plays Queen Louise of the Kingdom of Sylvania who immediately falls in love with Count Alfred Renard, a popular ladies' man, and soon marries this Parisian emissary in order to negotiate a loan from foreign power. After they wed, Alfred soon finds married life isn't what he has hoped, having to take orders from his wife as well as being second fiddle around the kingdom.

In spite of its age, THE LOVE PARADE is still quite entertaining early sound musical, consisted mostly of songs and limited dancing. With score composed by Victor Schewrtzinger and Clifford Grey, songs include, "Oo-La-La-La-La" (sung by Lupino Lane); "Paris, Stay the Same" (sung by Maurice Chevalier); "Dream Lover" (sung by Jeanette MacDonald/ ladies-in-waiting); "Anything to Please the Queen" and "My Love Parade" both sung by Chevalier and MacDonald); "Dream Lover" (reprise by MacDonald); "Let's Be Common" (sung by Lupino Lane and Lillian Roth); "The March of the Grenadiers" (sung by MacDonald); "Nobody's Using It Now" (sung by Chevalier); "The Queen is Always Right" (recited by Roth and Lane/ staff); "Dream Lover" (reprise by MacDonald); "March of the Grenadiers" (reprise by soldiers); and "My Love Parade" (reprised by MacDonald and Chevalier).

Running ten minutes shy of two hours, THE LOVE PARADE was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture, with Chevalier's nomination for Best Actor, but no wins. Other members of the cast consist of Eugene Palette, Edgar Norton, Ethel Griffies and Lionel Bellmore. Look fast for silent comic Ben Turpin in a funny bit; and future film stars as Virginia Bruce as the lady-in-waiting, and Jean Harlow as one of the patrons in the ballet theater.

Formerly presented on the American Movie Classics cable channel (January 1989-September 1996), AMC's host, Bob Dorian, noted an interesting piece of trivia that THE LOVE PARADE was the only movie in which Jeanette MacDonald smoked a cigarette on screen. Finally distributed to DVD in 2009, THE LOVE PARADE returned to cable television broadcasting once again, being Turner Classic Movies where it premiered February 3, 2010, with added bonus of two minute exit music in its fadeout.

Full of comedy wit and unexpected surprises in the Ernst Lubitch tradition, THE LOVE PARADE is still worthy film study and entertainment value after all these years. (***)

This is very much like a Vienese operetta, with its principle couple - Chevalier and MacDonald - and its second couple, the help, who mirror the principle couple in a light way. The music often sounds like minor Johann Strauss or early Lehar, and the plot owes a lot to The Merry Widow.

Still, my favorite aspect of this movie is that, being pre-code, it constantly flirts with the edge of what could be dared in those days. It's never in any way obscene or vulgar, but it's constantly winking at the audience about matters sexual, and of course the last shot is of the couple in bed - one bed. Hollywood wouldn't enjoy that freedom for another 30 years.

It's all very light and, in the end, not very memorable, but along with One Hour with You, which I probably prefer, a very enjoyable way to spend an evening.