#see he's successfully socialized yet another silly lieutenant

[soapfcrce-a]

Decker breaking the protein bar he scored in half, not even blinking or turning towards Soap as he held out the (larger) half to him <3 No he will not say anything about it

Half reading the dimestore trash novel he had snagged in a trade for his trail mix and some extra toilet paper, Soap just takes a bite without much extra thought.

Flip page, chew...

"Strawberry?"

[dweemeister]

NOTE: This review is based on the English-language version of One Hour with You. A French-language version, entitled Une heure près de toi, was shot simultaneously with the English-language production. Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald appear in both; Lili Damita plays Mitzi and Pierre Etchepare is Adolph in the French-language version. The availability and status of the French-language cut is unknown.

One Hour with You (1932)

There are certain words in the English language that make my blood boil for no rational reason. But one of those personally despised words is the first word that comes to mind when I think of One Hour with You, directed by Ernst Lubitsch “with the assistance of” George Cukor. The word is “chic” – give me a moment to clench my fists. For those who are not familiar with Lubitsch’s work (Cukor’s contribution to the film’s final cut is minimal, but more on that later), the German-American director is best known for a succession of sophisticated comedies from the silent era to the 1940s. The wit in these movies often alluded to things that the director, because of the Hays Code (a censorship guideline for American films not stringently enforced until 1934, later replaced by the MPAA ratings system in 1968), could not show. One Hour with You is among the funniest of Lubitsch’s talkie comedies and evidence that the director had successfully managed the transition from silent film to sound.

Dr. Andre Bertier (Maurice Chevalier) is a Parisian, hopelessly dedicated to his wife, Colette (Jeanette MacDonald). He wants you to know about their happiness and his faithfulness by breaking the fourth wall multiple times. If this sounds grating, you probably have never seen a Maurice Chevalier movie. Their nuptial joy is troubled when Colette’s best friend, Mitzi Olivier (Genevieve Tobin), unhappy with her marriage to the similarly dissatisfied Adolph (Charles Ruggles), takes a gander at the doctor. She begins to flirt – realistically and, dare I say it, racily – with Andre. Relations between the four leads come to a scandalous, yet hilarious, head as Colette plans and throws a dinner party for her friends.

One Hour with You was Lubitsch’s final musical romantic comedy (many of which starred Chevalier) working for Paramount. Compared to the film’s predecessors among Lubitsch’s filmography, it is the least beholden to fidelity. With a screenplay by Samson Raphaelson (1940’s The Shop Around the Corner, 1941’s Suspicion) paints the institution of marriage – or, at the very least, the idea of monogamous fidelity – the most cynically of all those films. Marriage itself is constricting, the film says, and this is even more so when the married couple have lost the romantic spark. As doting and puppyish as Andre is to Colette, the film depicts him as almost prudish when he is on the receiving end Collette’s suggestive “come hithers” – “Madame! You may think I’m a coward. I am!” Dialogue about Mitzi and Adolph considering divorce would have been stricken from the film because of the Hays Code if this film was released a few years later. But even in this pre-Code romantic comedy, the attitude towards their doomed marriage is jocular, as if both Mitzi and Adolph have intuited the silliness of their situation and have accepted the other’s flagrant adultery. It is at once refreshing to witness One Hour with You’s sexual freedom frankness as well as shocking to see two characters unfazed about adultery with a committed married person – yes, even in a pre-Code film.

This is not to describe One Hour with You as a searing of married life, arguing that the institution must be destroyed. One Hour with You is foremost an upper-class farcical comedy, akin to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. And like Wilde’s play, One Hour with You satirizes romantic pursuits – how easy it is to be infatuated despite your better senses, human fickleness, marriage’s fragility, and the performative nature of romantic and marital relations. Not one character is chastised in the film’s point of view; never is this any more obvious in the final moments, where Colette and Andre address the audience directly, asking what they might have done in their situations. Paris seems to bring this out in its residents and its visitors, as the rhyming police chief will tell you. Where modern comedies might easily veer into graphic, unimaginative dialogue, the grace of the film’s dialogue is delightfully subtle:

POLICE OFFICER: Come on, come on. Where do you think you are? What are you doing? What’s going on here? ANDRE BERTIER: The French Revolution! [resumes kissing Colette] POLICE OFFICER: Hey, you can’t make love in public. ANDRE BERTIER: I can make love anywhere! POLICE OFFICER: No, you can’t! COLETTE BERTIER: Oh, but officer, he can! ANDRE BERTIER (joyously): Darling!

Damn. The above is just one minor example of what is known as the “Lubitsch touch” – a bit of dialogue or visual technique that seems, on the surface to modern viewers, in keeping the supposed puritanism of classic American cinema but is anything but. For those unfamiliar with Lubitsch’s films, his touch might not be obvious at first. But if one keeps paying attention, Lubitsch’s naughtiness is bound to raise an eyebrow or inspire a blush. Another notable of the Lubitsch touch in One Hour with You comes as Andre and Colette engage in pillow talk, suggesting with darkened lights and a shared bed (the latter would not be permitted in American movies in a few years’ time). The entirety of Colette’s party is an example of the Lubitsch touch, especially the lively escapade in the garden.

How can someone resist the charm of Maurice Chevalier’s signature smile, his unevenly-placed hat, that rhyming scheme, and that ridiculous French accent? Chevalier is his usual charming self here, his face belying his character’s disbelief in the love triangle (or square) he is attempting to prevent. Briefly the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, he signed for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) shortly after One Hour with You, only to be frustrated by a star-billing dispute, and leaving the United States for his native France to resume his stage career there. Jeanette MacDonald’s voice, which lends itself to operas and operettas, might be irksome to some viewers – especially those who cannot suspend their disbelief with film musicals – but her performance as Colette captures a mix of jealousy and a desire to forgive needed for this role. With her Paramount contract nearing expiration, she also left for MGM – teaming up with Chevalier once more for The Merry Widow (1934) and soon to forge her more famous working partnership with Nelson Eddy. Genevieve Tobin makes it evident her character wants some of that world-renowned French cooking in the form of Andre. Tobin has the best comedic moments of One Hour with You and makes her lines drip with desire. Charles Ruggles is operating on middle-aged id, somehow making his character’s social awkwardness and legitimately creepy lines somewhat funny.

Those expecting show-stopping musical numbers are bound to be disappointed. The songs by composers Oscar Straus (better known for his Viennese operettas, 1931’s The Smiling Lieutenant) and Richard A. Whiting (“Hooray for Hollywood” from 1937’s Hollywood Hotel) and lyricist Leo Robin (“Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”, immortalized by Marilyn Monroe in 1949’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) are in the style of a Viennese operetta, rather than the splashy, occasionally mass-choreographed, musicals being made at Fox Film Corporation (soon to be 20th Century Fox), MGM, and Warner Bros. at this period. Lubitsch’s musicals always resembled Viennese operettas (this does not mean these musicals were sung-through like actual operas and operettas): songs have limited orchestration and harmonic interest, function primarily to progress the plot or reveal character insight, and are jaunty in tone and tempo. None of the film’s song act as a drag on the action, but the title track (sung by all four lead actors, but I could not find this version anywhere) and “Oh That Mitzi!” are the standouts. Like the film’s dialogue, the soundtrack is engrossed in love and romance – matching the wit of non-musical scenes.

For unknown reasons at Paramount, a project that should have been Ernst Lubitsch was assigned to George Cukor. Cukor, a Broadway director who was only beginning to direct under contract to Paramount, had yet to establish himself at the studio. The Philadelphia Story (1940) and My Fair Lady (1964) were still some ways off. Lubitsch, given his résumé, was more idoneous for One Hour with You. Early in production, Lubitsch (who was “supervising” Cukor) and Raphaelson heard claims from the cast that Cukor was approaching the material incorrectly. Viewing the rushes, both men agreed that Cukor was filling the movie with overwrought, excessive moments that were sapping the piece of its hilarity. Gradually, Lubitsch began to insert himself in the process to the point where Cukor was fully sidelined. Internal Paramount documents claim that Cukor’s remaining contributions to One Hour with You are brief reaction shots and a moment with walking feet. After Lubitsch’s attempts to eliminate Cukor’s credit and a lawsuit by the latter, an out-of-court settlement resulted in Cukor being credited as dialogue director. Cukor immediately left Paramount, landing at RKO to work with David O. Selznick.

The Hays Code and the introduction of splashy, mass-choreographed musicals from Fox, MGM, and Warner Bros. soon rendered musicals like One Hour with You out of vogue. With the silent era already becoming a distant memory less than a decade after the introduction of talkies, audiences flocked to musical with booming numbers and lavish production values – the image of Maurice Chevalier standing square at the camera, singing double entendres and smiling, no longer would cut it. Audiences wanted Busby Berkeley’s hallucinatory choreography of women in Footlight Parade (1933) or Fox’s stars swinging to Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938). But those musicals owe much to the likes of One Hour with You. In the awkward transitional years between silent film and synchronized sound, the Ernst Lubitsch musicals starring Maurice Chevalier represented one of the rare havens for cinematic innovation. Lesser filmmakers in those years were too often using sound as a gimmick, leaving the mesmerizing aesthetics of the silent era aside. For the Lubitsch-Chevalier musicals, including One Hour with You, they envisage film as a symphony of visual splendor and aural delight.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.