Watch Naughty Marietta For Free

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Expected more

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Producer: Hunt Stromberg. Copyright 6 March 1935 by Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer Corp. New York opening at the Capitol, 22 March 1935. U.S. release: 29 March 1935. Australian release: 3 July 1935. 11 reels. 106 minutes.SYNOPSIS: French Princess swaps places with a dowry-bride for the New World.NOTES: Prestigious Hollywood award, Douglas Shearer, Sound Recording. Also nominated for Best Picture (Mutiny on the Bounty). Best Picture of 1935 — Photoplay Gold Medal Award. Number 4 in the Film Daily poll of U.S. film critics.Until the late 1970s, when an inflationary surge in ticket prices completely distorted the box-office figures in favor of new releases, "Naughty Marietta" was listed by Variety as one of the top-grossing films of all time.Naughty Marietta was originally presented on November 7, 1910 at the New York Theatre with Emma Trentini and Orville Harrold. It ran 156 performances before going "on the road".COMMENT: A few daring critics have described the story of Naughty Marietta as "old-hat even for 1935". I suspect they haven't actually seen the movie. In print, it certainly sounds pretty silly, but it is all played tongue-in-cheek. MacDonald is particularly deft at putting a twinkle into her eye or a delicious note of sarcasm into her voice, and even the often wooden Nelson Eddy (at least in some of his later vehicles — he is exuberantly spirited and lively here) delivers his lines with a well-timed irony. Moreover, the story is so chock full of incident, so lavishly produced, so pacify directed, so fittingly characterized by such masterly support players, and above all so laced with tuneful, soaring melodies (so captivatingly sung!), there's frankly not a spare second to worry whether the story is outmoded. If said story old-hat, that's what I like. Give me more of it, please! (And of course that's exactly what happened in 1935. This first MacDonald-Eddy film was such a triumph, it did bot only establish Jeanette and Nelson as super-stars but it brought the whole repertoire of Operetta firmly back to the screen.)

If you are familiar with operetta on film and anywhere, you'll know that the story is not going to be its strongest asset. That is the case with Naughty Marietta where the slight and predictable story is the least memorable component about it. Nelson Eddy's acting did mature and became more natural later on, he does have a charm about him here and he is appropriately dashing but there's also the sense of not being entirely in his comfort zone. Naughty Marietta is a lovely film to look at, the costumes and sets are lavish and the photography is skillful and allows you to enjoy the production values properly. The score fits beautifully, and the songs are some of Victor Herbert's best, especially Ah Sweet Mystery of Life, Tramp Tramp Tramp and Neath the Southern Moon. Italian Street Song and Falling in Love with Someone are great too. The dialogue is not only smart and witty but warm-hearted and charming, never too heavy on the sickly sweet sentimental stuff. Naughty Marietta also moves quickly, is choreographed in a spirited and never leaden fashion and solidly directed throughout. Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald work really well together, her acting is better and more natural than his but their chemistry is sweet. They both have beautiful voices too, Eddy in particular has one of the best on-screen voices of its voice type, and their rendition of Ah Sweet Mystery of Life is hauntingly beautiful. You can not go wrong with having Frank Morgan and Elsa Lanchester in supporting roles, both give fine support. All in all, a real charmer, not entirely sure whether it's their best collaboration(that's probably Maytime) but definitely worth the watch. 8/10 Bethany Cox

During the return of the Bourbons years after the end of the French Revolution and the brief reign of Emperor Napoleon, noblewoman Jeanette MacDonald escaped from an arranged marriage by her domineering uncle (Douglas Dumbrille) by posing as a scullery maid and heading to New Orleans where settlers are awaiting the arrival of potential brides they've never met. There, she waives off the many admirers while sparring with Nelson Eddy, a law enforcement official who rescued her and the other ladies on her ship after they were overtaken by pirates. Of course, sparring on film ultimately leads to love, and in their first film together, MacDonald and Eddy are a romantic duo who became more famous than MacDonald was with her first partner, Maurice Chevalier. The result is a fun, sometimes camp, pairing that isn't as classic as their next ("Rose Marie") or as romantic as their third ("Maytime", my personal favorite of their many teamings), but is lavish and equally memorable in its own right.Today, "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life" is best known to film audiences for its spoofing in "Young Frankenstein" (in fact, the sequences of the song in the two films sometimes seems like it could be taking place at the same time, even if one is in Europe and the other the newly civilized North America), and its other romantic song, "For I'm Falling in Love With Someone" was also utilized in the Broadway version of "Thoroughly Modern Millie". Elsa Lanchaster, who ironically played "The Bride of Frankenstein" the very same year, is very funny as Governor Frank Morgan's initially suspicious wife, dressed to the nines but complete with cockney vocals, lightening up the minute she finds out that MacDonald is descended from European royalty. Morgan as usual is typecast as a flibbertigibbet, befuddled by everything going on around him. Also very funny is a sequence of when the women first arrive in New Orleans where a desperate local searches through the various women there as if he were shopping for steak at his local butcher. In their initial pairings, MacDonald and Eddy had tremendous chemistry, and you can see why they were so popular. His blandness in acting wouldn't be obvious until their later pairings. MacDonald is an expert comic, truly funny in a scene where she must disguise herself as the unclassy scullery maid, eating bread voraciously like a Parisian peasant starving under the cruelty of her own ancestors. The ending is the epitome of movie operetta camp, turning its constantly repeated love song into a march that may have you shedding tears in laughter.

Popular music changes from one era to another. Opera and operetta were the principle forms of popular music in the first decade of the 20th Century, although there were popular tunes (like "After the Ball Was Over" or "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now") that people would sing. The leading operetta composer in America was Victor Herbert (his closest competitors were "March King" John Philip Sousa, Leo Fall, and Reginald De Koven). Of that group Herbert and Sousa survive to this day, though Herbert's music is usually for concerts (Sousa survives because of his excellent marches). De Koven is recalled only for his greatest operetta, ROBIN HOOD (wherein he has the tune "OH PROMISE ME!")and Fall did some once favorite musicals like THE DOLLAR PRINCESS and THE PRINCE OF PILSEN. Later Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg would join this group. Noteworthy for being available but ignored was the one African-American composer of opera at the time (but only once), Scott Joplin.By 1935 the popularity of opera and operetta were somewhat on the wane. Popular music (especially tunes from Broadway) were more likely to be heard on radios or on phonographs. Hollywood was also pushing it's own successful music, such as tunes by Harold Arlen at Warner Brothers. Despite it's relative decline operetta still had it's aficionados. In Hollywood Laurel & Hardy did a series of film musicals based on operettas (BABES IN TOYLAND - another Herbert score - and THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, as well as the opera FRA DIAVALO). More important was film studio head Louis B. Meyer, who really liked the operettas of Herbert.In 1935 Meyer heard that his rivals at Paramount were losing their resident songbird Jeanette MacDonald. She had made several successful films (including LOVE ME TONIGHT) with Maurice Chevalier. It was her third of four films with Chevalier, and they would make one other film together afterward (THE MERRY WIDOW - based on Franz Lehar's Austrian operetta). But MacDonald and Chevalier disliked each other: Chevalier had been rebuffed by her early on when he tried to get her sexual interest (he pinched her behind), and later he felt she was a hypocrite about her high moral standards (she was having an open affair with her future husband Gene Raymond). It's incredible that their four musicals retain their popularity to this day (and that many critics feel they were more effective as a pair than she was with Nelson Eddy).After THE MERRY WIDOW, MGM put MacDonald in THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE with Ramon Navarro (with a score, including "SHE DIDN'T SAY YES", by Jerome Kern). Although the film did well it was not a world record shaker. Meyer (who, it subsequently turned out, had a personal interest in MacDonald that mirrored what Chevalier had originally wanted) pushed her into NAUGHTY MARIETTA with Nelson Eddy. And the result was musical film history.NAUGHTY MARIETTA is a costume piece, which seems like some versions of the novel (later opera) MANON LESCAUT by Abbe Prevost. Fortunately it is not as deadly serious. Like that novel, the hero and heroine meet in 18th Century France, and end up in the wilds of the French North American colony of Louisiana. But whereas Manon and her lover are buffeted by fortune to a tragic ending, Marietta and Warrington (Jeanette and Nelson) are able to succeed in coming together at the end and surviving. She is an aristocrat whose debt ridden uncle/guardian (Douglas Dumbrille, of course) is trying to get her to marry a boring Spaniard grandee (Walter Kingsford) for his money. The King of France favors the marriage for diplomatic reasons. Jeanette flees to Louisiana as an indentured servant, and the ship is seized by pirates. But subsequently they are rescued by Eddy and his men.What follows is the normal slow break-down plot between Nelson and Jeanette. He is attracted to her and vice versa, but he is too cocky, and she is not a pushover. What slowly cements the relationship is their singing, and the numbers (including Herbert's "Italian Street Song" and ending most memorably with "Sweet Mystery of Life") makes their love's success inevitable. Eddy is not a stiff tree - his acting was not of the calibers of say Paul Muni's or James Cagney's, but he obviously never took himself seriously and enjoyed playing with Jeanette (a feeling that was reciprocated: they became very close friends). Take a look at how he is surprised at her singing. Jeanette had her voice trained (Nelson does not know this) and he starts saying, "But the tones you get out of your throat" with total surprise. He can act if you watch that early sequence.The supporting cast, including Frank Morgan as the bumbling governor (but good friend of Eddy and MacDonald - look at how he shows his resentment to Dumbrille when the latter shows up), Elsa Lanchester as his wife, Akim Tamiroff as an early type of entertainment entrepreneur, and Harold Huber and Edward Brophy as Eddy's chief assistants are uniformly good. NAUGHTY MARIETTA remains, despite the decline of operetta as a well loved area of music, a wonderful film of the golden age of Hollywood.