Hadrina
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Abbigail Bush
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
TheLittleSongbird
In fact, Monte Carlo is a nice film that left me mostly in a good mood. It does have a few fairly major flaws, starting with Jack Buchanan who is a total charmless wimp of a leading man and his chemistry with Jeanette MacDonald doesn't really convince, Maurice Chevalier would have been a much better fit. The song Trimmin' the Women is forgettable at best and embarrassing at worst, a song that really should have been left on the editing room floor, a shame because there was some clever musical choreography in it. The story also even for a 1930s musical is rather contrived with a few situations stretched to the limits in credibility. And sadly, ZaSu Pitts is wasted and strains for laughs, she's often delightful but her comic talents are just not used very well at all. As ever with an Ernst Lubitsch film Monte Carlo is a lavish-looking film with opulent period detail and attractive cinematography and Lubitsch directs with his usual class and elegant style. The songs, with the exception of one, are lovely and staged in a witty(a couple alternatively intimate) and light as a feather way, the memorable scene being the tear-jerking Beyond the Blue Horizon staged on a moving train. Give Me a Moment Please is very amusing as well and the most story-enhancing of the songs. The dialogue is sweet and funny with some nice interplay between the actors, the supporting performances are solid enough but other than the songs Jeanette MacDonald is the best thing about Monte Carlo. She is effortlessly charming and feisty and her voice while not large is beautiful in tone and shaped with tasteful style and phrasing. All in all, Lubitsch is nowhere near his best here(Heaven Can Wait, the Merry Widow and particularly The Shop Around the Corner are much preferred) but while problematic Monte Carlo is not a bad film at all, lesser Lubitsch but Lubitsch when not on best form is better than most other directors in the same position. 7/10 Bethany Cox
cynthiahost
This is another early excellent example of Ernest Lubish musical talkie. It isn't overacted or staged .Jeannette plays a countess who runs way with her maid on a train to escape the umpteenth time to marry an pipsqueak an a count. She decides to go to Monte Carlo with her last franks in hope to gamble to make a lot of money so she can be independent. A gambling opportunist, played by a very young Jack Buchnanan, with his friend sees her ,befor she goes to the gambling house being superstitious rubbing a mans back for good luck and paying him for it.He follows her and ask her if she needs good luck by rubbing his hair.She ignores him. But as soon as they get close he continues to reject him but rubs his hair,. He goes in to observes that she's winning. All of a sudden she loses and he feels real bad about it.Trys to contact her to try to make up for it she rejects him. So when he and his friend meets her beautician he gets him to allow himself to play her beautician to get into her room. He almost makes a mess trying to fix her hair. She ends up hiring him as her chauffeur and cook. she goes to the bank to found out she's broke.He fiancés is trying to look for her and discovers he went Montiecarlo. He finds her and she felt that she had no choice but to marry him for his money which he finds novel. Earlier she has to fire him but keeps him on when she goes back with fiancé.He admits to her partially that he's a gambler and agrees' to help her win money going out together pretending he's not her beautician.But they end up falling in love and not gambling. Her maid play by Zazu Pitts suggest she dump him. She does regretfully. for weeks looks for him until she calls the right barber shop when he's getting a shave . He answer's the phone and rejects her . Later on shows up at her place only to professionally fix her hair but she want him to go to the opera with her. He turns her down. As she goes to the operas late, in which her pipsqueak of a fiancé is already at the theater. Paramount adapted from their Rudolph Valentino silent Monseur Vocare as a fictitious operetta at the Monticarlo opera house. Thats when she discovers that he's there and that he is count. Another standard was written for the screen Beyond the blue Horizon. the song title was used later on in another movie staring Dorothy Lamour but it was a different story.
bkoganbing
When Jeanette MacDonald sang those lyrics she knew something better had to be waiting for her in Monte Carlo than what she was leaving. Jeanette who's a countess has run out on Claud Allister for the third time because she just can't quite take the plunge. She and her maid Zasu Pitts just hop the first train and it happens to be going to Monte Carlo.Jack Buchanan who plays a count takes one look at Jeanette and knows she's for him, but the only way he can finally gain entrance to her rooms is pretending to be her hairdresser. So the games begin, those magical continental games that Ernst Lubitsch brought to the screen with that delightful Lubitsch touch.Jeanette and Jack got to sing some nice songs written by Richard Whiting, W. Frank Harling, and Leo Robin chief of which are Beyond The Blue Horizon and Always In All Ways. The staging of Beyond The Blue Horizon was quite innovative at the time, the motion of the locomotive synchronized with Jeanette's voice. A prime example of the Lubitsch touch.Jack Buchanan was a popular English music hall star who went back across the pond and appeared in several English films which occasionally were shown here. But his next American appearance was memorably opposite Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in The Bandwagon.My favorite in the cast though is Claud Allister. That man took a patent out on playing silly upper class twits, usually of the British variety. No one else could do them quite as good. He's most memorable opposite Ronald Colman in two Bulldog Drummond films as his friend Algy.A nice musical score and a cast more than capable of delivering the song and story with class makes Monte Carlo still a joy waiting for you.
R Becker
Surprisingly fresh comedy and adult outlooks sparkle in this fun early talkie and musical starring Jeanette MacDonald. It's got a none-too-subtle fetishy undertone to give it a snappy jolt, it's got some unusually naturalistic acting (especially from the pre-Nelson Eddy Miss MacDonald), and it's in glorious black and white. What more could you ask? Well, the supporting cast do tend to be a bunch of stock characters, but it *is* a musical comedy, after all. The climax at the opera has a lovely exchange of wordless acting between MacDonald's Countess and her paramour -- and the whole thing is full of "the Lubitsch touch," from before he had entirely lost his European edge. I recommend it!
