Maytime **** (1937, Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, John Barrymore) – Classic Movie Review 9452

Director Robert Z Leonard’s pretty 1937 MGM musical Maytime tells the cute and eventful story of true love versus opera’s bright lights, with some splendid singing from Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and a score much changed from the Sigmund Romberg original.

Jeanette MacDonald plays Marcia Mornay, a gorgeous opera diva who falls in love in mid-19th-century Paris with handsome but broke American singer Paul Allison (Nelson Eddy), which naturally upsets her scheming svengali, Nicolai Nazaroff (John Barrymore).

Old MacDonald tells the story in flashback to a youngster, and finally she and Eddy are united again, still singing happily, in the next world.

A delightful old-style operetta experience, Maytime is among the best of the super MacDonald and Eddy musicals, possibly their best.

The songs include: ‘Will You Remember (Sweetheart)?’, ‘Vive l’Opera’, ‘Ham and Eggs’, ‘Santa Lucia’, and ‘Les filles de Cadix’.

The MGM character actors are out in force, always a good thing.

Also in the cast are Herman Bing, Lynne Carver, Rafaela Ottiano, Paul Porcasi, Sig Ruman, Tom Brown, Charles Judels, Walter Kingsford, Guy Bates Post, Agostino Borgato, Harlan Briggs, Allan Cavan, Luke Cosgrave, Earl Covert, Paul Cremonesi, Harry Davenport, Blair Davies, George Davis, Guy D’Ennery, Sarah Edwards, Frank Elliott, Harold Entwhistle, Robert Fischer, Christian J Frank, Billy Gilbert, Ed Goddard, Harry Hayden, Howard C Hickman, Russell Hicks, Arthur Stuart Hull, Brandon Hurst, Sydney Jarvis, Hans Joby, Claude King, Leonid Kinskey, Ivan Lebedeff, Gus Leonard, Eric Lonsdale, Francisco Maran, Belle Mitchell, Alberto Morin, Jack Murphy, Edgar Norton, Helen Parrish, Albert Pollet, Frank Puglia, Henry Roquemore, Christian Rub, José Rubio, Oscar Rudolph, Alexander Schoenberg, Frank Sheridan, Pat Somerset, Genaro Spagnoli, Bernard Suss, Gloria Talbott, Bobs Watson, Delmar Watson, Paul Weigel, Ben Welden, Tudor Williams, Clarence Wilson, Ian Wolfe and Douglas Wood.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9452

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