Conventional musical with some odd touches in the musical numbers. Jeanette MacDonald is in good voice and her numbers are a bit more varied than her usual sets with Nelson Eddy. As someone who has a limited tolerance for both operetta and MacDonald/Eddy musicals I enjoyed the substitution of Lew Ayers for Nelson. Unfortunately his character makes little sense, he initially pushes his wife to grab the chance she's given than when she starts to succeed acts like a churlish jerk almost instantly and yet still she pines for him.
So the story is wanting but at least the cast is full of good actors, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter, Rita Johnson, Virginia Grey, Esther Dale etc., all adding nice touches to the film making it much more pleasant than it would be.
Shot for some unknown reason in inconsistent sepia tones which both add and distract from the flow of the film where this goes off the rails a bit is in a couple of musical numbers. The Madame Butterfly riff is interesting on an enormous stage that no theatre could possibly hold but with some beautiful almost surreal images. However the finale is like some crazy fever dream with a majority of the participants in creepy immobile masks. Not a major musical or even a major picture in any of the stars filmographies this is still an decent musical from the king of studios in the dream factory.
So the story is wanting but at least the cast is full of good actors, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter, Rita Johnson, Virginia Grey, Esther Dale etc., all adding nice touches to the film making it much more pleasant than it would be.
Shot for some unknown reason in inconsistent sepia tones which both add and distract from the flow of the film where this goes off the rails a bit is in a couple of musical numbers. The Madame Butterfly riff is interesting on an enormous stage that no theatre could possibly hold but with some beautiful almost surreal images. However the finale is like some crazy fever dream with a majority of the participants in creepy immobile masks. Not a major musical or even a major picture in any of the stars filmographies this is still an decent musical from the king of studios in the dream factory.