THE MERRY WIDOW
US, 1952, 105 minutes, Colour.
Lana Turner, Fernando Lamas, Una Merkel, Richard Haydn, Thomas Gomez, John Abbott, Marcel Dalio, Robert Coote.
Directed by Curtis Bernhardt.
The Merry Widow is based on the popular operetta by Franz Lehar. It was filmed as a drama in 1925 with Mae Murray and John Gilbert. It was filmed by Ernst Lubitsch with Jeanette Mac Donald and Maurice Chevalier in 1934. Una Merkel plays the same role here as she did in the 1934 version.
The film is an MGM star vehicle for Lana Turner. It introduced Fernando Lamas as a singer and actor who was to appear in a number of MGM musicals in the first part of the 50s including some with Esther Williams whom he married.
The film is set in one of those Prisoner of Zenda-type middle European countries with financial difficulties which are to be solved by marriage.
The film has the light touch, the music, Lana Turner’s voice is dubbed, but the cinematography, the style and the fashion make it a lavish entertainment. (It was nominated for Oscars for best art direction, set direction, colour and best costume design.)
1. The tradition of this operetta on the stage, its music, songs, romantic story, period setting? The film tradition with Erich von Stroheim, using it for political tones, Ernst Lubitsch using it for light and ironic comedy? The purpose of this film? message, sheer entertainment in musical form? The film as a Lana Turner vehicle?
2. The conventions of the musical comedy and American operetta? The transition from Europe to American treatment? The musical styles of operetta, the lyrics, the staging and choreography? The orchestration of the music? How successful for those who enjoy The Merry Widow?
3. The use of colour photography, studio and location setting, and decor?
4. The musical comedy operetta plot? The middle-European setting, royalty and the impoverished nobility needing American money? The widow and her status in European society? The emphasis on manners? The emphasis on finance for survival? The atmosphere of pre-World War I Europe?
5. The merry widow herself? Lana Turner's style and glamour? Her status in the country? The appeal of Count Danilo? Her relationship to the King, to the nobility, to Kitty Reilly, her friends? A character study or typical heroine of operetta? The happy ending?
6. Count Danilo as the hero of an operetta? His charm, European manner? His mission for his country? His style of courting, the romance? The importance of the songs for illustrating the plot, the romance?
7. The minor characters: Kitty Reilly and her style of robust comedy, Baron Popov, the King, the Ambassador, the Marquis do Crillon as representing operetta European types? Comedy, intrigue?
8. How attractive were the songs and the way they all work into the plot? integrated, or did the film pause for the songs?
9. Royalty, aristocracy, status? Snobbery? Finance,
intrigues for national support? The light touch of an age which has gone and has the aura of the fairy-tale?
