The Merry Widow

The music is tuneful, the direction is elegant, the script is witty, and the leads are charming. Chevalier--although Hollywood gossips reports he never liked her--brings out the sexy woman in MacDonald in a way that Nelson Eddy. or even Clark Gable, never could.

Lubitsch's signature dialogue is here bolstered by an unmatched opulence in visual design: costumes, set pieces, and dancing are of the highest old-school Hollywood order. The plot wistfully turns as often as Chevalier has trysts. And you know Lubitsch is a master when he uses every filmic device to show how marriage is a prison constructed by society to trap you... while at the same time manipulating you into loving the plot's brief, joyous moments of monogamy.

Lubitsch's coy wit is as scintillating as it ever is; and there is also, stronger than ever, a just suppressed discontent beneath all the stiff and precise adherence to proper courtly form. And on a few occasions, there's a delirious feeling of truly letting loose: when MacDonald first begins to sing, for instance, or when, for an even better instance, she first begins to dance.

One of many film adaptations of the operetta by Franz Lehár, and a typically good if slightly dated musical romantic comedy by Lubitsch. Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier deliver charming performances.

I don't like Chevalier, but still he generally succeeds in entertaining me. The opposite can be said for MacDonald whose charm speaking roles disappears when she starts singing. It's a nice film with the usual Lubitsch charm and a fun story, but the music is hit and miss.

Probably Lubitsch’s weakest that I’ve seen.

It's a tiny bit boring and doesn't have the complete charm I'd gotten from previous Lubitsch movies. But it's still lots of fun.

Maurice Chevalier, who annoys the shit out of me. Jokes whose punchlines you can see coming a mile away. A "love story" such that the male would get arrested as a stalker today. An obtrusive musical score that constantly tells you how cute and charming all this is, as hectoring as any laugh track in some godforsaken sitcom

Incredible visuals, original laughs, great energy. Never gets boring. Entertains nothing less than recent musicals, if not more.

The story promises better, especially on Lubitsch's standards. There are too many boring scenes and excessive singing.

The plot gets a bit unnecessarily convoluted toward the end, and overall it feels sort of like a retread of The Love Parade, but it has some great clever lines and it might be Lubitsch's most opulent, visually impressive work at least, even if it also somewhat lacks that certain cynical, subversive edge that defines his best films. Chevalier gets more grating here than usual, but as always Edward Everett Horton makes up for it.

With Chevalier and his out of this world French charms it's the easiest thing in the world to make a movie as romantically funny as this. Watching him go to work you really believe he is God's gift to women and you can see he knows it too. Jeanette MacDonald as his target was breathtaking. The lady really comes to life up against Chevalier with so direct and playful lines thrown between them. Yet another superb Lubitsch creation with lots of little touches and a few big ones.