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Boring

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Grace Moore was a very odd leading lady in Hollywood. She was only moderately pretty and her biggest asset was her operatic songs...and Columbia Studios tried for several years, unsuccessfully, to make her a star. However, her career in Hollywood only lasted nine films until they gave up. Don't feel sorry for her, however, as Moore was a very accomplished singer and was world famous for her performances...not bad for a girl from Tennessee!This is one of Moore's last films and it's pretty much the same sort of formula they'd use in the next movie, "I'll Take Romance"...though this later film is a bit better. In this case, she and Cary Grant have an on again off again relationship until ultimately she realizes what a fine catch he is and they live happily ever after. The story is predictable but could have worked if she didn't keep breaking into song. These are NOT the normal plebeian sort of songs most folks enjoy but operatic...and they do NOT age well. In fact, they make the film a real chore to finish. The only reason I did is that I would like to one day say I've seen all of Cary Grant's films...even the bad ones. And, sadly, this one is pretty bad.

As a Cary Grant fan I wanted to learn more about his track record leading up to 'North by Northwest' which is why I watched this film. Don't waste your time. It is not a movie, it is a poorly made excuse to add to Grant's credit list. It fails to provide any interesting characters or engaging storyline. The script is poorly written and it is poorly directed. No wonder it hasn't stood the test of time. Grant is not convincing as a tough guy pushing people around. Nobody would put up with him today. It has shades of him acting tough in 'Mr. Lucky', but nowhere near the quality of 'The Last Outpost' or 'My Favourite Wife'. It's fair to say that most of Grant's 1930s films weren't very good.

The sole directorial effort from Robert Riskin (the talented screenwriter behind many of Frank Carpa's best films), WHEN YOU'RE IN LOVE is one of many films that attempted to re-create the success of 1934's surprise hit ONE NIGHT OF LOVE. This film boasts the advantage of featuring opera singer Grace Moore, the star of the previous film, in the lead role, yet it never really seems to amount to much and was not well-received by audiences upon it's original release. The film's basic premise (famous Australian opera singer "hires" an American man to pose as her husband in order to enter the country) is a workable enough set-up, but the picture fails to generate much momentum or interest. Riskin does a respectable job for a first time director, but displays a poor sense of pace and allows the picture to become plodding.Moore is acceptable as the film's Diva (she never really commands the screen, but she has a odd sort of like-ability) and Cary Grant is in fine form as her "rented" mate, but they are playing stock characters who only seem to behave in the manner that is necessitated by the script. Their relationship suffers numerous ups and downs throughout the course of the film, but I never really cared whether they ended up together and that is a serious determent for this type of picture. The film is also marred by far too many piecing musical numbers that seem to exist only to pad out the film's runtime and serve as a defacto showcase for Moore's shrill voice (even "Minnie the Moocher," which is often referred to as the film's highpoint, is virtually unlistenable). The film's true saving grace is Aline MacMahon in a fresh and intelligent performance as Moore's assistant - MacMahon's good-natured portrayal is a minor comic gem surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.

"When You're in Love" is notable for two trivial reasons, neither of which brings any merit to the movie.The first trivium is that silent-film star Louise Brooks appears in this film as a chorus girl. In 1929 Brooks had poisoned her Hollywood career, refusing to participate in the re-shooting of one of her silent films as a talkie. Eight years later, trying to recover her brief stardom, Brooks was desperate enough to strike a one-sided bargain with low-budget studio Columbia: former Denishawn dancer Brooks would accept a chorus-girl role in "When You're in Love", at a chorus girl's wage and indistinguishable from any of the other chorus girls. Columbia would circulate photos of Brooks in the chorus line, hoping to drum up publicity for this film with the angle of the ex-star beginning all over in the chorus. The back end of this deal was that Columbia promised to give Brooks a starring role afterwards. The chorus-girl angle did nothing to save the box-office of "When You're in Love", and the starring vehicle never came.(I find Louise Brooks very sexy, but most of her fans seem very creepy. The Louise Brooks cult is determined to delude itself that Louise Brooks herself was identical to the character she played on screen. Most Marilyn Monroe fans are creepy too, for the same reason.)The second trivium is that "When You're in Love" is the only film ever directed by screenwriter Robert Riskin. Riskin was the principal scripter on most of Frank Capra's best films: most of the distinctive touches that define Capra's movies are actually Riskin's creations. When Riskin resented that Capra got all the credit for their collaborations, Capra suggested that Riskin should try to direct a film himself. This movie was it... and a very bad directorial debut. In his autobiography, Capra was openly gleeful about the flop of Riskin's one directorial effort."When You're in Love" stars opera singer Grace Moore, which is part of the problem. Opera singers tend to be failures as movie stars. The success of Jeanette MacDonald was due much more to her sex appeal rather than to her singing voice. Ironically, one of the few opera singers to succeed in movies was Geraldine Farrar: a box-office hit in *silent* films. Grace Moore lacked Jeanette MacDonald's sex appeal and acting skills. Hedging their bets, the producers of "When You're in Love' have larded this film's score with music that's highbrow, lowbrow, middlebrow and everywhere else on the brow spectrum: some genuine opera, some operetta, some Jerome Kern. The most ludicrous moment occurs when Moore dresses up as Cab Calloway and sings 'Minnie the Moocher' with bowdlerised lyrics. It's not pretty, folks.The plot, you ask? Nobody sees a movie like this for its plot. Well, if you insist. Grace Moore plays a successful opera singer, who - as an implausible publicity stunt - gets married in name only. Her husband is a charming ne'er-do-well, played by Cary Grant. Guess what happens in the last reel. Go ahead, have a guess. It really irritates me to see movies about a woman who falls in love with a completely irresponsible jerk because he's handsome and charming. This happens in real life too, but I don't need to see it in the movies."When You're in Love" is froth, utterly without substance. That's no crime, but the bubbles in this champagne have gone very flat indeed. I found this film tedious. Many of the musical numbers were extremely dull, and all of them were badly staged. Some character actors whom I've liked elsewhere (Henry Stephenson, Luis Alberni) give listless performances here. Robert Riskin was a brilliant screenwriter but this is one of his poorest efforts. Based on this one film, he shows absolutely no talent for directing, although perhaps he might have acquired the proper skills if he'd continued. (One of the greatest scriptwriters of all time, George S Kaufman, also directed only one film ... but Kaufman was a brilliant stage director.) I'll rate 'When You're in Love' precisely 2 points out of 10.