BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

richard-1787 This is very much like a Vienese operetta, with its principle couple - Chevalier and MacDonald - and its second couple, the help, who mirror the principle couple in a light way. The music often sounds like minor Johann Strauss or early Lehar, and the plot owes a lot to The Merry Widow.Still, my favorite aspect of this movie is that, being pre-code, it constantly flirts with the edge of what could be dared in those days. It's never in any way obscene or vulgar, but it's constantly winking at the audience about matters sexual, and of course the last shot is of the couple in bed - one bed. Hollywood wouldn't enjoy that freedom for another 30 years.It's all very light and, in the end, not very memorable, but along with One Hour with You, which I probably prefer, a very enjoyable way to spend an evening.

cynthiahost An excellent print. I saw this back in the early 90's on the American movie channels first annual film preservation film festival ,befor it went down hill. I was disappointed that they did not include the vagabond King. At the time it was found intact.Maurice plays an official to the royal government having a good time in Paris.But he's spied on by other officials when he is caught having an affair with a married women by her husband and she pretentiously tries to commit suicide. After things are straightened out , he's caught by a main official and is scolded and he is demanded to go back to his Country to be punish by his queen who's is unmarried. Every body is pressuring her to get married cause her country is bankrupt and they need a loan. Once she sees Maurice and he see's her they fall for each other.After they get married she treats him like a dog having nothing to do . His servant played by Lupino lane and her servant played by Lilian Roth ,who also was in the vagabond king,fall for each other too.He gets frustrated that when he presents to her the country's budget stating that they need no loan that hes was writing for weeks. She and her counsels get angry at him for suggesting it . The marriage goes on the rocks. He want to leave. But she begs him to stay to go with her to the opera.Surprises her to come back at least until the bill is sign. In the end they made up. A song that was written for the movie became a standard ,"dream lover. Which paramount would use the song and music over again on some of their other pictures. the story and the acting was good unlike some movie musical of the time.

bkoganbing The Love Parade which was Maurice Chevalier's second feature film is as fresh today as it was in 1929 when it garnered a whole flock of Academy Award nominations. It was Paramount's prestige film of the year, in fact I'm not sure if any other Paramount features got any nominations for anything that year.It was Ernst Lubitsch's first sound feature film and apparently the man with the famed Lubitsch touch hit the ground running in the new medium with a bunch of players who were also fresh to cinema because of the coming of sound. This was Jeanette MacDonald's film debut and while she's not billed over the title as Chevalier was, her part is every bit as important and as big as his. Maurice Chevalier has been cutting a wide swath among the ladies of Paris where he's attached to the embassy of Sylvania. So much so that he's been recalled to Sylvania for a reprimand or so he thinks.Jeanette MacDonald is the new young Queen of Sylvania and she's got to marry for reasons of state. As did many a female monarch, British ones like Victoria, Anne, and the two Marys all took husbands for reasons of state and the method they chose them was as much political as anything else. Only Elizabeth I managed to escape the marriage obligation.While her diplomats look askance on Chevalier's romantic antics, Jeanette sees in him one grand candidate for marriage. If she's got to get married for reasons of state by God she's going to pick a husband who's going to be ready to romp at a royal command.The Love Parade's musical score was written by Victor Schertzinger and Clifford Grey. The first notes Jeanette MacDonald ever sang on screen were from her hit song, Dream Lover. It's not the same song as Bobby Darin had a hit in the Fifties from. Film fans will recognize it as the flying theme that Cecil B. DeMille used as background music when Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde were on the trapeze in The Greatest Show On Earth. Jeanette also sings March of the Grenadiers as she reviews her palace guard.Chevalier's two big numbers were Paris Stays The Same and My Love Parade from whence the title comes. Both were written to suit his grand boulevardier style. Some comic numbers were written for Lupino Lane and Lillian Roth who are the second leads. Lupino is Chevalier's orderly and Roth is one of her maids. They make a cute pair with their impish behavior, aping their masters.The Love Parade got six Oscar nominations, but did not win in any category and the categories were a lot fewer back in the day. It was up for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Maurice Chevalier, Best Sound Recording, Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography. It also has a lot fewer overacted performances that were the norm in those early sound days. It was as if Ernst Lubitsch instinctively knew what to do with sound in film.The story is about a Prince Consort and usually the model that is held up is that of Prince Albert for Queen Victoria. But that's not the road Chevalier wants to take. It's a continental story and yet Lubitsch as he always did, made those stories appealing to American audiences. After 80 years, The Love Parade is still appealing.

netwallah There isn't much to this early Ruritanian musical, adapted from some sort of stage play to feature the singing of Maurice Chevalier, the rakish count Alfred Renard, and Jeanette MacDonald as Queen Louise of Sylvania. In the early sections the count is a cheerfully cynical Don Juan, and in the end Petruchio. That is, he is a libertine in Paris and gets sent home, where he marries the queen, but soon tires of being second and uses coolness and distance to teach her a lesson. The refeminization of the dominant woman—that is, stripping her of her power, leaving her simpering—is rather unpleasant. MacDonald is earnest but unconvincing as a queen, largely because of her relaxed posture and her accent, though she sings like a good stage monarch. She and Chevalier do have the good grace to be self-parodic—he's at his best explaining, with a charming grin, why he is the only one in the movie with a French accent. There's a charming second couple, the count's valet (Lupino Lane) and the maid Lulu (Lillian Roth), who parallel the queen's courtship of the count with their own rather cruder antics. Also nice is to hear the rumbling voice of the great character actor Eugene Palette, who plays a lamentably small part, but plays it well.