Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Steffi_P The 1930s were the era of the screen partnership. If a duo worked in one picture, the rule was to keep them together, turning out hits until the public got bored. But it wasn't always a rule producers were able to stick to. After the massive success The Love Parade, which united stars Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, producer-director Ernst Lubitsch followed up with Monte Carlo, in which MacDonald had to swap the gallic lothario for English fop Jack Buchanan.Really, it was not so much the sundering of Chevalier and MacDonald that was the problem. MacDonald was a good singer and a decent actress, but there was no unique chemistry between her and Chevalier. No, it is Lubitsch who has been calamitously separated from the French entertainer. In his new breed of operettas for the screen, earliest examples of how we now define the movie musical, Lubitsch's Ruritanian settings and sly humour needed the cheeky continental charm of someone like Chevalier. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Buchanan – he was witty, graceful, and could be outstanding in the right role (especially The Band Wagon, two decades later) – but he simply doesn't convince as a philandering French count. There may have been some thinking that Buchanan was to stereotypical Englishness what Chevalier was to stereotypical Frenchness. This is quite true, only stereotypical Englishness isn't what's required! But Lubitsch potters along, honing the formula of the new genre. This time around, the songs are written by Richard A. Whiting and W. Franke Harling. The melodies are neither as sweet nor as memorable as those written by Victor Schertzinger for The Love Parade, the only standout being the popular hit "Beyond the Blue Horizon". However, the lyrics by Leo Robin are great fun, with internal rhyming reminiscent of Lorenz Hart, and a fun and occasionally witty wordplay. What's more Lubitsch and his screenwriter Ernest Vajda have done a more elaborate job of weaving the songs into the story, and the action into the songs. A good example is "Give Me a Moment Please", which is staged as a phone call between MacDonald and Buchanan (funny how Scottish those two sound when their names appear side by side). The song not only relates to the characters and the narrative, but the plot is furthered through the song.As for merging action and music, there are some nice touches here which we didn't see in The Love Parade. This is not a dance musical, and yet Lubitsch choreographs dances of ordinary gestures for many of the numbers. Sometimes this is rather blunt and abstract, such as the head turning of the crowd in "She'll love me and like it". Other times it is more subtle and natural, as in "Trimmin' the women". In that song, we see little moves like Buchanan, John Roche and Tyler Brooke all crossing their legs simultaneously, and in the second half of the song making a little dance out of an afternoon tea session. Their movements look natural but also have a musical rhythm to them. This is all important development for the genre.Ultimately though, this is a box of few delights. I'm not blaming it all on Mr Buchanan – he is actually delightful here and there, but he is not able to carry the picture, and the lack of an appropriate lead man shows up the rather lacklustre storyline. The screen musical would continue to develop, and during the 30s it would belong chiefly to the reliable stars who could be associated with a certain formula – Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple, Chevalier, MacDonald… stars who were draws in themselves and needed no fine drama or creative direction to make a hit.

elisedfr Monte Carlo fail to attain the rate of other Lubistch musicals like "Love Parade" or "One hour with you".But this is anyway a very cute,funny and surprising movie who contains some great sequences and some holes.A sort of musical "Bluebeard's eight wife".Jeanette Mac Donald gives one exhilarating performance.She's used to play the noble lady charming and snob and she excels at it.Just watch the scene where she breaks her hair and shut,while crying:"Here!I'm going to the Opera and i'll say to everyone you dressed my hair!" I couldn't stop laughing.About Jack Buchanan-well,he's not Maurice Chevalier to say the least.He doesn't seem very comfortable with his part.In some scenes (mainly the one where the count and his friends laugh endlessly) he is mechanical and unnatural.He drift from cynic to genuine lover in a very disturbing way. Anyway,it must be said that in certain sequences he's not bad at all.I liked the way he shook his head when Jeanette calls him Rudolph and at the end,when he affect indifference each time the countess looks at him then smile irrepressibly. The supporting cast is excellent but some characters (as the fiancé's father disappear in the middle of the movie and left a strange impression.The songs are quite good -except the funny but forgettable little number about hairdresser- Jeanette Mac Donald sings the legendary,Lubitsch favorite song "Beyond the blue horizon" and there is a beautiful duo between the two leads "Always in all ways".At a certain moment of the song,you feel an almost palpable atmosphere of joy.Verdict: "Not bad,not bad at all".Forgive the script's incoherences and Buchanan's weaknesses and enjoy.

mgconlan-1 The world of Jeanette MacDonald fandom is divided into two groups: those who love her early films, usually with Maurice Chevalier as her co-star (though in this case she got Jack Buchanan instead) and sophisticated directors like Ernst Lubitsch and Rouben Mamoulian, and those who swear by her eight films with Nelson Eddy that followed. Count me in as part of the first group (though there are some quite good MacDonald=Eddy films, especially "Maytime" and "Sweethearts"). "Monte Carlo" isn't at the level of "The Love Parade" or "Love Me Tonight," and frankly it would have been more fun with Chevalier in the male lead (Jack Buchanan is a bit too stuck-up for his character, and for some reason Lubitsch didn't give him an opportunity to dance, at which he was good enough that in 1930 he was considered a rival to his future "Band Wagon" co-star Fred Astaire), but it's still a great movie, with plenty of the famous Lubitsch "touches" (the torrential rain in the opening wedding scene, the use of peasants MacDonald's train is passing by as her backing singers, the clock that features statues of musicians with different instruments playing one of the score songs) and an overall insouciance and sophistication far, far above the plodding retreads of old operettas that constitute most of the MacDonald-Eddy films. Thank you, Eclipse, for finally giving me a chance to see this!

theowinthrop Aside from introducing "Beyond the Blue Horizon" to the public, this musical is pretty weak for MacDonald and Ernst Lubitsch. As several of the writers on this thread have pointed out, the leading man (Jack Buchanan)is just not strong enough to lift his half of the love story plot. He is a count at Monte Carlo, and he pretends to be a hairdresser to keep close to Countess Jeanette. He is given such third rate songs like "Trimmin the Women" and "Always in All Ways" to sing (only MacDonald had a really memorable tune, and it was sung too early in the film). Even Claude Allister's "She'll Love Me and Like It" has more bounce and pizazz to it - and it is not a good song. Also, Buchanan may have been terrific on the West End stages of the 1930s and 1940s, buy his movie career was spotty. His most memorable part was as Jeffrey De Cordoba, the great man of the theater in THE BAND WAGON who almost destroys the musical that Fred Astaire is trying to put on - and while good in that role, the thought that Clifton Webb might have played the role makes Buchanan's performance irritating. Webb was Astaire's chief Broadway rival in the 1920s, and this would have been his one chance to show the early Webb reputation as a great song and dance man with his one peer. Oh yes, Buchanan's was the "star" of Preston Sturges' last film THE FRENCH, THEY ARE A FUNNY RACE. That is regarded as Sturges' worst film.The best thing in the film tends to be Claude Allister's performance as the cuckolded fiancé Prince Otto. Besides his big song number (totally unexpected), Allister puts on more force than normal for his usual "silly ass" Englishman performances. He suddenly reappears at Monte Carlo to confront Jeannette (who keeps leaving him at the alter) and immediately takes control of her situation. In fact, given his more active personality Allister deserved to win Jeannette - he just looks preposterous, so he has to lose to the better looking Buchanan. That seems a more ridiculous reason to accept the conclusion of any film. Because Jeannette pushed some real excitement across the screen with "BEYOND THE BLUE HORIZON" twice in the film, and Allister does manage to squeeze unexpected juice out of his role and performance, I give this a five. If Buchanan's co-stars had been equally dull as he, it would have gotten a 2.