Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.

Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

JohnHowardReid Producer: Ernst Lubitsch. Copyright 3 August 1931 by Paramount Publix Corporation. Filmed at Paramount's Astoria Studio in New York. New York opening at the Criterion: 22 May 1931. U.S. release: 22 March 1931. 102 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Lieutenant winks at passing princess. Lieutenant is forced to marry princess.NOTES: Nominated for Hollywood's most prestigious annual award for Best Picture, but lost out to "Grand Hotel". Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times selected The Smiling Lieutenant as one of the "Ten Best Films of 1931". The film is a remake of "A Waltz Dream" (1925) directed for Ufa by Ludwig Berger, starring Mady Christians and Willy Fritsch, released in the USA by M-G-M. (Interestingly, Lubitsch was originally assigned to direct this movie, but left for America before shooting commenced).COMMENT: A trifle disappointing. Many of the situations recall The Love Parade (1929) in which Maurice Chevalier starred for producer/director Lubitsch opposite Jeanette MacDonald. Admittedly, Miss Colbert fills Jeanette's shoes most charmingly, while Miriam Hopkins is an absolute standout as the nasty princess. But this itself creates what I felt was a downbeat conclusion.Another problem for me lies in the unheralded disappearance of Charlie Ruggles. After a splendid introduction, he simply drops out of the action after five or ten minutes and doesn't come back! True, George Barbier makes an able substitute in the amiable buffoon department and provides many of the movie's best laughs. As for Chevalier, he plays with his usual gusto, though his unabashed breeziness in the face of some rather weak (or repetitive) material does become a little trying. The songs, despite their lilting score, fail to catch the ear. Not a single one of them do I remember just a few hours later! Admittedly, I'm being a bit hard on "The Smiling Lieutenant" because it didn't quite live up to my expectations. But even so, I'd still give it at least eight out of ten. Production values, as usual, are magnificent, and the celebrated "Lubitsch touch" is evident right from the very start.

Steffi_P In that era we rather misleadingly call "pre-code", infringements against the production code (which was fully in existence, just lacking in enforcement) came in all shapes and sizes. While some producers titillated their audiences with tentative nudity or shocked them with frank portrayals of infidelity and prostitution, others used delicate but potentially more flagrant transgressions of innuendo. It was at Paramount studios, in the pictures of Ernst Lubitsch, that innuendo was taken to astounding new heights of creative expressiveness.Of course, Lubitsch was and still is known for his tact in implying the unspoken, but he did not operate in a vacuum. The Smiling Lieutenant was his first collaboration with screenwriter Samson Raphaelson, and while Lubitsch was no doubt the driving personality behind his famous "touch", it seems Raphaelson (who would have a hand in most of the director's subsequent hits) thought enough along the same lines to make the pictures he wrote by far the most "touched". So while Lubitsch gives us visual clues such as the young lady using a secret knock to get into Maurice Chevalier's room, followed by a close-up of a light going on and off, it was probably Raphaelson who contributed some of that witty wordplay that adequately sets the tone. My favourite example of this has to be Chevalier's reply to Miriam Hopkins asking if married people winked; "Oh they do, but not at each other!" And then there are Clifford Grey's lyrics, which playfully delve into some of the more inventive innuendo, most memorably in "Breakfast Table Love".Chevalier is the perfect star for this kind of understated ribaldry. He has a "touch" of his own, in the way he smiles and raises his eyebrows, that curiously yet alluring treads the line between lecherous and charming. His appearance here, after the disappointing Monte Carlo with Jack Buchanan, demonstrates how important the right kind of actor is for such a role. If Jack Buchanan invited you to breakfast, you'd think he was making a polite offer to pop round in the morning for tea and toast. When Maurice Chevalier invites you to breakfast, there is absolutely no doubt that he wants you to spend the night, and frankly doesn't care what you fancy eating the next morning! Claudette Colbert makes a great screen partner for Chevalier. She is not quite the talented singer that Jeanette MacDonald is, but she has a slinkiness to her that suits the story's undertones, and would later be exploited by Cecil B. DeMille in Sign of the Cross and Cleopatra. This may be one of her earlier roles, but she shows a great confidence and maturity about her that is perfect for the part. The third corner of The Smiling Lieutenant's love triangle is Miriam Hopkins. Hopkins is sometimes mistaken for a bad actress. This is not the case. She is in fact an excellent ham, as were Charles Laughton and John Barrymore, by no means a subtle or realistic player, but nevertheless utterly captivating in the right role. She is excellent here as the naïve and frumpy young princess, displaying her finest comedic sensibilities.The Smiling Lieutenant contains only five songs, far fewer than previous Lubitsch musicals. With the exception of "Jazz Up Your Lingerie", the numbers also seem far less integral to the narrative than they were in Monte Carlo (which by the way is the best in terms of musical direction and integration, albeit the worst in every other respect). And yet this is a very consistently musical production. In 1931 it was still unusual for pictures to feature incidental music, and ironically the early talkies were often genuinely silent whenever the actors stopped talking. The Smiling Lieutenant however is scored almost from its first minute to its last. Contrary to the later practice of writing all music after filming wrapped, I suspect the incidental scoring may have been prepared beforehand and even played on the set. In particular Claudette Colbert's poignant abandonment of Chevalier seems almost choreographed to its sweeping string arrangement.When such backing scores became commonplace, they sometimes actually spoiled a picture's integrity, blaring out emotional cues for each scene when none was required. But for The Smiling Lieutenant it is a positive bonus, providing a light and lyrical setting for the many wordless moments. And this of course is all the better for those neatly constructed vignettes of unspoken innuendo, sly winks at the audience that are so fabulously clever they are a delight in themselves.

MARIO GAUCI "The Lubitsch touch" was all the rage at the start of Hollywood's Talkie era, which is why musical trifles such as this one or the preceding THE LOVE PARADE (1929) – skilfully made and pleasantly risqué though they might be – ended up being major Academy Award contenders for a spell. In fact, the film under review got its sole Oscar nod for Best Picture – an achievement which would become virtually impossible in a decade's time. Popular Continental crooner Maurice Chevalier plays his typical role of a Viennese roué who steals the girl (an almost unrecognizably young Claudette Colbert appearing as a concert violinist) of his comrade-in-arms (Charles Ruggles, who unaccountably disappears from the film after the first few scenes!); standing guard at the ceremony of visiting royalty, he creates a diplomatic scandal for seemingly winking at the naïve princess (Miriam Hopkins) when in fact he had been making eyes at Colbert who was watching the parade from the sidelines! To make amends, he is forced to marry Hopkins but he is not about to be tied down to a life of luxurious boredom and slips out in the commoner's uniform of straw hat and tuxedo for a night on the town every chance he gets; in the meantime, the flustered King comforts his lonesome daughter by playing chess in her boudoir! Colbert and her bandmates give a recital in Chevalier's kingdom and she finds herself invited to the Palace…but it's Hopkins who summoned her – to seek advice on how to ignite Chevalier's passion! Curiously enough, Chevalier had been unusually loyal to Colbert instead of his usual roving self and it is only on the latter's advice (and her involvement in Hopkins' jazzy makeover) that he finally abides willingly to his marital duties. As is customary for Lubitsch, what is left unsaid is about as important as what is spelled out and THE SMILING LIEUTENANT provides the director several instances wherein to indulge his subtle wit: the very opening sequence showing a tailor, who had called at Chevalier's to demand payment, leaving when the door is unanswered while a girl is ushered inside soon afterwards by the accomplice-butler; the sequence showing Ruggles trailing behind Chevalier and Colbert and carrying her violin case; Colbert's indoctrination of the stuffy Hopkins into what the modern woman wears and which music she plays, etc.

zetes Among some movie buffs, there is a line of thought about Gene Kelly that he comes off as an unlikeable and smug jerk. Those people have never seen a film starring Maurice Chevalier. Kelly might stalk you until you fall for him, and a little more creepily than Fred Astaire would, but at least you know he'd probably stick around afterward. Chevalier, not so much. Behind that gigantic smile lies a snake. His thick French accent may have been sexy back in the day, but hearing it now just ups his jerk percentage higher and higher. Honestly, though, I love the guy. He's such a goofy character. He may be a cad, but he's an entertaining one. I shake my head at how naughty he is, but always with a grin on my lips. Chevalier is at his most delightfully awful in The Smiling Lieutenant, playing a philandering Viennese officer currently courting violinist Claudette Colbert. During a ceremony honoring royalty visiting from postage stamp-sized Flausenthurm, Chevalier smiles, laughs and winks at Colbert. The princess of Flausenthurm (Miriam Hopkins) catches it, thinks its for her, and demands that something be done about it. Queue the shotgun wedding, and Maurice is in hot water, now wedded to a wet blanket and in love with a hot tomato. The movie is pretty raunchy by 1931 standards. Unsurprisingly, the film was considered lost for many years. I'm sure the Hayes Code enforcers would have been quite happy with burning every print. There's a ton of sex being had by the characters, and there's a whole song dedicated to women's underwear. Seriously. Claudette Colbert teaches Miriam Hopkins about modern fashions in "Jazz Up Your Lingerie", easily the best number in the film and, in my mind, one of the weirdest and most entertaining in cinema history. I'd have to do some extensive looking into all the musicals I've ever seen, but I'd estimate that this is top five material. Hopkins completely steals the movie. The liner notes in the Eclipse Lubitsch Musicals set claims that it is her first film, but IMDb lists at least one earlier feature. The plot is very silly; one wouldn't imagine that it could contain any real emotion. But I actually did feel for Hopkins after Chevalier refused to sleep with her on their wedding night. This is where you can't help but hate Maurice. I also liked George Barbier, who plays Hopkins' father. And one of my favorite character actors, Charles Ruggles, appears very briefly at the beginning.