Love Me Tonight

Maurice, a tailor in Paris, goes to a château to collect unpaid bills and is taken there for a baron. The widowed princess Jeanette is at the château too, and nobody tells anybody the truth. Rouben Mamoulian made it in the first years of sound and put the music inside the storytelling: the song Isn't It Romantic passes from one person to the next and carries from Paris to the château, so the song performs the change of place. Rodgers and Hart's compositions are part of the scene rather than decoration. Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald star. It carries the freedom of the pre-Code period and some scenes were cut from later releases. The slow motion and the play with sound are extremely advanced for the time. Who it is for: viewers who like early musicals and formal invention. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a modern narrative pace.