One Hour With You (1932)

America's favorite French romantic Maurice Chevalier reunites with co-star Jeanette MacDonald in their second film with director/producer Ernst Lubitsch titled One Hour With You, a musical/comedy about temptation in marriage. In the years just after the advent of sound Lubitsch would be the filmmaker that would truly first get the ball rolling for the musical genre before it tookoff later in the 1930s. Despite the fact the his musicals seem all too similar to each other it was he that would fiddle around with what made a musical work that would allow future filmmakers to expand on the infant genre in the years to come.

One Hour With You is a musical about a Parisian couple whose relationship hits a bump when introduce to individuals seeking extra-marital affairs. Chevalier and MacDonald play the ever happily married couple of Andre and Colette, whose marriage still has the fire as when they first started dating. Chevalier once again dons his usual role as the, let's say, woman-loving Frenchman who shares his thoughts through open song. Andre and Colette's marriage is thrown a curveball when Colette's best friend Mitzi (Genevieve Tobin) takes a shine to Andre and will do anything to have an affair with him, including sabotaging their marriage. The picture follows Andre's triangle with the two women, intertwined with many original songs as he decides what to do as he loves his wife, yet is tempted by this other interesting woman. After Andre does have the affair, Colette uses Andre's best friend's affection for her as a pawn in their chess game of love, calling the quarrel an equal draw between the two of them. An odd ending, bust somehow it is played as a happy ending as the two do truely love each other despite Andre's actions.

Technically speaking the film is very sound. The cinematography is good overall, but is excellent at parts, most notably with tracking shots through a large party scene and dancing shots within that party. These specific instances do a marvelous job to convey what is happening in the story besides the usual dull static shots, which mainly fill the movie. The story is rather puzzling. Though the film is entertaining with the plot and the execution of comedic timing, the resolution to what would be normally a very touchy subject of an extra-marital affair comes to an abrupt and bizarre "happy" conclusion. The score and exacusion of music was done well, making the sudden bursts of music from dialogue less jarring from the musicals in the past. One exception to this may be certain scenes where spoken lines that are clearly written in verse, complete with rhyming, and is done without instrument accompaniment or musical tone. They were a little odd, but none too off from the tone of the rest of the picture. The film was not magnificent by the stretch of the imagination, but was sure to be entertaining for audiences in the early 1930s.

One Hour With You brought together the team of director Ernst Lubitsch and stars Chevalier and MacDonald for their second collaboration together. They would work together once more time in the future as a threesome, but under MGM and not Paramount with The Merry Widow in 1934. To bank on international markets Paramount simultaneously produced a French version with much of the same cast to be seen in much of Europe. With a cleanly produced picture and entertaining story One Hour With You would be nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards in 1932, its sole nomination, but did not stand a chance against the dramas in that category, ultimately losing out to Grand Hotel.

In all One Hour With You was just a blip on the radar in 1932 movies, but with its success would help propel the genre of musicals towards an awakening in the coming years. Lubitsch would be one of film's most respected filmmakers during this period, even being appointed production manager at MGM in 1935, only to soon return to directing. Both Chevalier and MacDonald would have long and respected careers in film and music. One Hour With You is now seen as a stepping stone in the history of the musical and its stars, making it a looked-over footnote in cinema history.