Sweethearts (1938)

Sweethearts
Directed by W.S. Van Dyke
Screenplay by Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell based on a story by Fred De Grasac et al
1938/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing

Sweetheart, today will never fade
Like an eternal serenade
For love will end the way it starts
Forever we’ll be sweethearts — lyric by Robert C. Wright & Chet Forrest

The singing is the high point of this movie.

Gwen Marlowe (Jeanette MacDonald) and Ernest Lane (Nelson Eddy) play sweethearts in the long-running Broadway show of that name and are happily married in real life.  A film studio is trying to lure them to Hollywood.  Stakeholders in the Broadway show resort to desperate measures to split up the team to prevent their departure.  With Frank Morgan as a Broadway producer, Mischa Auer as a playwright, and Ray Bolger as a dancer.

Despite the sterling cast of character supporting actors, I thought the comedy fell flat.  The story also takes quite awhile to get going.  The first hour or so is filled with flimsy excuses for one musical number after another.  Ordinarily I would not object but here the tunes are not very catchy.  There is a nice number featuring Ray Bolger’s loose-limbed dancing at the very beginning.  MacDonald and her red hair look very good in color.

Sweethearts won an Honorary Academy Award for its Technicolor cinematography.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Sound Recording and Best Music, Scoring.

Jeanette goes clothes shopping for Hollywood (1938 fashion on parade)