Love Me Tonight is a 1932 American musical comedy film from the pre-code era. The musical scores are by Richard Rodgers (music) Lorenz Hart(lyrics). During all the melodies and comedic moments, the film focuses on love between a tailor disguised as a baron, and a young princess.
When Parisienne tailor Maurice Courtelin(Maurice Chevalier, The Merry Window) learns that one of his aristocratic clients, the Viscount Gilbert de Varèze (Charles Ruggles, Murders in the Zoo), is a deadbeat, never paying for the merchandise that he buys. Maurice, wanting to collect his debts from Gilbert, goes to the castle of Comte de Savignac (Charles Butterworth, Forsaking all Others) and Comtesse Valentine (Myrna Loy, Libeled Lady) who are Gilbert’s relatives. Gilbert owes Maurice a lot of money for some tailoring work. Gilbert stiffed him one too many times and followed him to the castle! While there, Maurice meets and ends up falling in love with a young widow, Princess Jeanette (Jeanette MacDonald, San Francisco). Fearing that she would not marry him because he is simply a tailor, he masquerades as the wealthy Baron Courtelin to increase his chances of courting here. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, the truth always comes out at the end.
Love Me Tonight is another wonderful classic with outstanding acting and some unforgettable musical numbers. Director Rouben Mamoulian, who directed the timeless horror classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, did another marvelous job directing this picture, with his incorporating of music, comedy and romance to make an excellent movie, which has not gotten the notoriety it deserves. Maybe now it will!
The musical numbers in the film are classic Rodgers and Hart songs including “Love Me Tonight”, “The Song of Paree”, “Isn’t it Romantic?”, “Mimi”, “The Son of a Gun Is Nothing but a Tailor” “A Woman Needs Something Like That” “I’m an Apache” and “Lover”.
One of my favorite actresses Myrna Loy has a small role. Her character somewhat reminded me of how she was in The Thin Man series, which arguably was her most famous role. There are several funny scenes throughout but the one that to me a memorable scene with Maurice and a horse at a local stable named Solitude. This scene had me in stitches!
The excellent cinematography for Love Me Tonight is by Victor Milner capturing a lot of great scenery and mood for the picture.
Previously released on DVD by Kino Lorber, Love Me Tonight gets a Blu-ray upgrade from the popular label, featuring a brand new 4K Master. The image boasts superb clarity with rich textures with a higher contrast. The greyscale is balanced which improves the depth. Black levels are wonderfully rich and maintains a natural film-like appearance. The print damages, speckles, lines and such are at a minimum. Love Me Tonight looks incredible, and probably will never look any better than it does here!
The English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track for this release is also pleasing. The dialog comes in clearly, with the music sounding the most aggressive. No hissing or other audio distortions occurred during the audio presentation. English subtitles are available for this offering.
There are several extras for this release that includes an audio commentary by film historian Miles Kreuger (Founder and President of the Institute of the American Musical). who also was a friend of the director. He just loves this movie; you can easily tell because at the very beginning of his commentary he exclaims that Love Me Tonight is “the finest musical of all time”. He enthusiastically goes on to discuss the director, the cast and the film’s production. This is a great track to listen to because of his deep passion for this movie.
In addition to the commentary there are more features to behold. There are a pair of songs as part of the supplemental package. Maurice Chevalier sings “Louise” and Jeanette MacDonald sings “Love Me Tonight” (from the Paramount newsreel series Hollywood on Parade). Both songs last a couple of minutes. “Screenplay Excerpts of Deleted Scenes” shows some dialog and scenes which were deleted. “Production Documents and Censorship Records” also lasting less than a minute, shows a vast collection of original documents. A theatrical trailer rounds out the supplemental materials.
Fans of musicals should not pass out this Blu-ray of Love Me Tonight. A great film that has been given a 4K master, and several entertaining extras makes this a highly recommended package!
Love Me Tonight
Director- Rouben Mamoulian
Cast- Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Charles Ruggles
Country of Origin- US
Distributor – Kino Lorber
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date-10/18/20