Monte Carlo

Ernst Lubitsch's 1930 musical follows Countess Helene, who flees her own wedding. Out of money, she tries the tables at Monte Carlo; the Count Rudolph she meets there begins posing as her hairdresser in order to get close to her. The best known passage is the song on the train. As Helene sings in her compartment the music settles into the rhythm of the wheels and peasants in the fields join the chorus; that fusion of sound and place became a textbook example of early sound cinema. Jack Buchanan and Jeanette MacDonald lead. Lubitsch places the songs inside the narrative and builds sexual implication without stating it, an approach that came to be named after him. Who it's for: those curious about early sound musicals and Lubitsch comedy. Who it's not for: viewers expecting modern pace; the playing and cutting stay close to the theatrical convention of the period.