IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023158/
IMDB rating: 7,8
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Main Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Charles Ruggles, Myrna Loy
"One of the most technically accomplished and sophisticated movie musicals of the 1930's, Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight had a profound effect on the shape of the musical genre (especially the films of Vincente Minnelli), and remains a candidate for best movie musical ever made, some seven decades after its release. And that distinction is based entirely on its style and structure - it doesn't even take into account a hit-laden score by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, or a raft of delightful performances, several of them totally unexpected in their range and wit.
Director Rouben Mamoulian had already jump-started the musical genre with the backstage drama Applause (1929), to great critical and financial success. In contrast to that movie's deceptively naturalistic approach to its subject, Love Me Tonight was highly stylized - Applause had no actual musical numbers in complete form, while Love Me Tonight was filled with incredibly elaborate and subtle musical set-pieces that grow naturally out of the plot (adapted from a play by Paul Armont and Leopold Marchand) and advanced the narrative. Some of the scenes here helped set the stage for works such as An American In Paris, Gigi and Funny Face.
The rhythmic street sounds in the opening Paris sequence, the precise cuts in 'The Sonofagun Is Nothing But a Tailor', the slow-motion fox hunt, and a parody of Sergei Eisenstein's editing style further attest to Mamoulian's technical acuity. With its cross-class fairy tale love story tempered by Ernst Lubitsch-style, pre-Production Code sophisticated comedy, and a supporting cast including Myrna Loy as a nymphomaniac , Love Me Tonight's non-musical content matches the charm of its songs, making it one of the best musicals of the 1930s." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/love-me-tonight-v100414
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