A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Only a year after "The Love Parade", Paramount failed to repeat the success with this film version of the successful Rudolph Friml operetta. Whether a hit at the box office or not, it fails to stand the test of time when compared to the Jeanette MacDonald/Maurice Chevalier operettas (and even MacDonald's others with different leading men) because of poor direction and an even worse performance by its leading man, Broadway tenor Dennis King.I have to honesty tell movie musical fans to avoid this one first and go straight to the 1956 Kathryn Grayson/Oreste color remake, or even the 1938 non-musical "If I Were King" with Ronald Colman and Frances Dee. Made to look like Svengali or Rasputin in his peasant gear, King frightfully overacts, and in close-ups, his profile is up there with the ugly hag in Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". The score is pleasantly sung, but even MacDonald later referred to King's big love song, "Only a Rose" as "Only a Nose". The second lead is played by Lillian Roth who was a comic scene stealer in "The Love Parade" and plays basically the same role that Myrna Loy did in the original film version of "The Desert Song" the year before and in the same part that Rita Moreno would essay 26 years later. She is pretty much wasted. The villains are all one-note, and MacDonald is lacking the iron butterfly feistiness that would make her a major success in the series of films she did with Chevalier and much later at MGM with Nelson Eddy. The Friml songs are good, but not as memorable as his score for "Rose Marie" which MacDonald of course did only six years later with better success.

This is a terrible early talkie with a flamboyant 19th century ham performance by Dennis King in the lead and a nondescript one from Jeannette MacDonald. It was filmed entirely in 2 strip Technicolor, which makes up for some of its failings. A restored print is housed at UCLA and it is the only known surviving color print. The elaborate art direction deservedly earned an Oscar nomination.It is available on DVD from Loving the Classics, which uses an old battered 16 mm black and white television print (MCA-TV), which is 3/4 screen, blurry, washed out and with poor sound. The silence surrounding the dialogue is full of white noise.There is the lovely score - MacDonald has three numbers: Someday, Only A Rose and Love Me Tonight.Songs:Act One: 1:08:10King Louis - King Hymn - Chorus SOMEDAY – sung by MacDonald If I Were King - King What France Needs - King Song of the Vagabonds – King ONLY A ROSE – sung by MacDonald, joined at end by King SOMEDAY – reprise – sung by MacDonald Huguette's Waltz - sung by Roth LOVE ME TONIGHT – sung by MacDonald and KingAct Two: 36:30Pool Procession - Chorus Song of the Vagabonds – reprise – King Requiem – Chorus ONLY A ROSE – reprise finale – sung by Macdonald and KingThis is for die-hard fans of Rudolf Friml (composer) and Jeannette MacDonald.MacDonald scenes: 11Act One: Church Interior, Street, King's Observatory, Observing Villon's transformation, Palace Walk, Balcony Scene, Observing Villon and Herald from Burgundy; Act Two: Garden, Huguette's Death Scene, Church, Gallows.

Does anyone know when shooting on this film started? I know that films in this era took only a short time to film. Was this one standard in production, or did it take longer? Anyone who knows the background of this film, I would like to talk to you. I don't have anything else to say. So, in order to reach the ten lines I have to add ballast So, this is ballast Any information is appreciated Any hints on how I might view this film in Technicolor are appreciated. I think this may be one of those films held hostage. Why those who love these films, preserve them, restore them, save them, object so strenuously to people seeing the results of their efforts.Thank you.

Considering the major names involved (in addition to the performers, it was an early screen adaptation from Herman J.Mankiewicz!) in this fine reflection of the popular 1925 operetta, it's high time we had a good Technicolor restoration done and issued on DVD.Jeanette MacDonald as the female lead is, perforce, secondary to the slightly "over the top" Dennis King recreating his starring Broadway role (511 performances at the Casino Theatre), but she gives a pure portrait of the King's niece much more honest and appealing than her later over blown "acting" in the Nelson Eddy screen operettas of the late 30's and 40's.Lillian Roth's Huguette is more throaty than many familiar with the character's beautiful Rudolf Friml music may be used to, but her acting is impeccable and quite moving. Additionally, the chance to see 20th Century Fox's first major "Charlie Chan," Swedish actor Werner Oland, in another perspective entirely as Thibault, is not to be missed for any fan of Earl Derr Biggers' famous sleuth.While, after the painful Hollywood custom, much of the rousing score has been sacrificed in the film's fast moving 104 minutes (only 100 surviving in the TV print I've seen), most of the best, "Some Day," "Only A Rose," "Huguette Waltz" and of course, "Song of the Vagabond" are here in fine form. Certainly preferable in this relatively faithful form than the bland 1956 remake. It's an exciting alternative to the fine (if music-less) 1938 Ronald Colman film drawn from The Vagabond King's source material: "If I Were King."