Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

wes-connors Broadway stars Jeanette MacDonald (as Gwen Marlowe) and Nelson Eddy (as Ernest Lane) are celebrating six years starring in the highly successful operetta "Sweethearts" and have been happily married for six years, also. They are still very much in love, but find it difficult to have off stage time together without family and work related people hanging around. They plan to leave New York for laid-back Hollywood, which prompts a plot to break up Ms. MacDonald and Mr. Eddy. Everyone figures MacDonald and Eddy are worth less apart, and Hollywood will lose interest in pairing them in movies...The public seems to adore them with young new partners Douglas McPhail (as Harvey Horton) and Betty Jaynes (as Una Wilson), but Hollywood doesn't notice..."Sweethearts" caught MacDonald and Eddy cresting on their wave of success. "Photoplay" magazine gave it their "Best Picture" award and audiences lined up to see the musical team in "Oscar"-winning Technicolor. "Quigley Publications" annual box office stars poll reflected three reasons to see "Sweethearts"; for the year 1938, MacDonald was solo star #14, Eddy polled at #19, and the team shared position #22. Supporting actors Frank Morgan (as Felix Lehman) and featured player Ray Bolger (as Hans) photographed well enough in color for "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), in case anyone was wondering...***** Sweethearts (12/22/38) W.S. Van Dyke ~ Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger

radioriot I saw this movie for the first time tonight....WOW! I never really liked these two in their other movies but this one is great and the color... superb. My favorite part of the visuals are the on location shots of New York in 1938 IN COLOR! Amazing that the front of NBC still looks the same as it did then. The songs in this picture are much better than most of the "Mountie" movies they did. And Ray Bolger (a year away from "The Wizard of Oz") just steals the opening scene of the movie... too bad they couldn't find another spot for him to dance in this movie. And Frank Morgan (also a year away from "The Wizard of Oz")....how can anybody not like Frank Morgan as the worried producer. He is so much fun in every movie he is in. It is just ashamed that MGM and the other movie studios didn't use color more in these great old movies. What a treasure they would have become. It certainly helps me see the world of my parents and grandparents in real life color, instead of dull black and white. See this movie if you get the chance... just for the fun of it.

bkoganbing Sweethearts is the first of two of the Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy films to be done in technicolor, the second at last being Bittersweet. It is also the first MGM film done in modern technicolor, though in Jeanette's The Cat and the Fiddle, the last 10 minutes were in color. And it is the only one of their films besides Bittersweet where they start off as man and wife.The original operetta by Victor Herbert was done in 1913 and it was in fact a story set in Holland as the numbers do show. But this film is like the later one Nelson did with Rise Stevens, The Chocolate Soldier, in that he and Stevens are husband and wife appearing in The Chocolate Soldier while the plot of that is taken from Ferenc Molnar's The Guardsman.Sweethearts has an original script by Dorothy Parker and it involves two happily married singing co-stars of a long running operetta, named Sweethearts. They've been appearing on Broadway for seven years in the same show.In fact a whole cottage industry has grown up around Sweethearts. Producer Frank Morgan, songwriter Herman Bing, librettist Mischa Auer have had it real good for seven years. They've been quite content to live off the box office of Sweethearts as long as MacDonald and Eddy keep appearing. Also the extended families of both Eddy and MacDonald live off of them as well.When Reginald Gardiner woos them on behalf of Hollywood producer George Barbier, panic ensues among the ranks of the cottage industry. These people might actually have to go to work.Knowing Dorothy Parker wrote 50% of the script, you can imagine it is a witty one. Jeanette and Nelson are in good voice and the musical calls for a large number of duets. They sing the title song, For Every Lover Meets His Fate, and an interpolated non Victor Herbert song, Our Little Grey Home in the West in anticipation of their California excursion. In addition Jeanette sings A Summer Serenade which was originally an instrumental Victor Herbert composition entitled Badinage. Robert Wright and Chet Forrest gave it some lyrics for the film. Nelson has a good typical Nelson marching song in On Parade.After appearing with Nelson Eddy in Rosalie as a sidekick Ray Bolger didn't have as many scenes, but got to show his dancing talent a lot more in the Wooden Shoes number. Jeanette personally interceded with Louis B. Mayer and got Douglas MacPhail and Betty Jaynes cast as their understudies.MacPhail and Jaynes married later on, but divorced after MacPhail's career took a nosedive in the early Forties. He was a good singer who you might remember appeared with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in Babes in Arms and later introduced the Cole Porter classic, I Concentrate on You in Broadway Melody of 1940. Tragically he took his own life after the divorce for God only knows what reasons.For Jeanette and Nelson fans and for those who like to see Ray Bolger in something else besides The Wizard of Oz, Sweethearts in highly recommended.

didi-5 A high-budget offering for MGM stars Nelson Eddy and Jeanette Macdonald, and the studio's first film to be released in Technicolor (Maytime had been started but not completed in this process), centres on a lovey-dovey couple who have worked for years in a Broadway success and are offered the chance to work in Hollywood. How do their theatre collaborators stop them going there?Unusually for films featuring the Singing Sweethearts, this one has a sparky and funny script (largely by Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell) from which it benefits. Not many songs have survived from the Broadway production of the real 'Sweethearts' (sadly, the omissions include 'The Cricket on the Hearth', which was really quite a sweet song), and others have been added to flesh out the Hollywood fantasy. Perhaps the best numbers are 'Pretty as a Picture' and 'On Parade'.In support are Frank Morgan ('the Wizard of Oz'), Ray Bolger (not used anywhere near enough), and the poor man's Eddy and Macdonald, Douglas MacPhail and Betty Jaynes, who suffer from a total lack of charisma. The leads themselves are fine and do with the more meaty than usual material. Perhaps their more slushy collaborations such as 'Rose Marie' and 'Maytime' are better overall, but 'Sweethearts' is definitely worth a look.