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When in Paris, do as René Clair does. The city symphony at dawn (hammering cobblers, snoring vagabonds, puffing smokestacks) builds to a view of a familiar boater hat, Maurice Chevalier's sidewalk stroll includes an early appearance by the zoom lens. The tailor has a three-paneled mirror before him so he's his own quartet when singing "Isn't It Romantic," the "very catchy strain" is picked up by a whistling cabbie, a marching platoon and a gypsy's violin before it reaches the ears of the widowed princess on the balcony (Jeanette MacDonald). The mooching viscount (Charlie Ruggles) enters the shop in underpants and top hat, the stiffed tradesman promises a visit: "I'll be a one-man French Revolution!" Every Rouben Mamoulian is a musical of a sort, the Rodgers and Hart score lets him revel in aural and visual rhythms. The humble clothier finds himself posing as a baron amid bluebloods, a bit of Gogolian masquerade and the realization of a prophecy by the Three Fates, here a trio of sewing biddies. The slinky countess (Myrna Loy) is ready for all comers, the meek suitor (Charles Butterworth) aims high and tumbles off his ladder ("I fell flat on my flute"). "Mimi" reprised gives the ticklish sight of C. Aubrey Smith tousled in his pajamas trying a verse or two, the looming shadow in "I'm an Apache" goes into Stevens' Swing Time. Undercranking during the stag hunt yields to tiptoeing slow-mo, such is Mamoulian's camera, it splits the frame diagonally so Chevalier and MacDonald can share the same bed (cf. L'Atalante). "Aren't you a little insane?" "Yes. Let me sing to you." "You are insane!" The charging locomotive is no match for the heroine in a Dovzhenko low angle, the kiss dissolves in a screenful of steam. Cinematography by Victor Milner. With Elizabeth Patterson, Ethel Griffies, Blanche Friderici, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Greig, and Bert Roach. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |