BITTERSWEET

US, 1940, 94 minutes, Colour.
Jeanette Mac Donald, Nelson Eddy, George Sanders, Ian Hunter, Felix Brassard, Edward Ashley.
Directed by W.S.then Dyke.

Bittersweet is one of eight musicals starring Jeanette Mac Donald and Nelson Eddy. Their fans will be very happy with this film, a lot of singing, especially in turn-of-the-century Vienna, full of colour.

What is of particular interest is the fact that the original play was written by Noel Coward, as with the songs and lyrics, They have his particular rhythms, the touch of recitative speech rhythms as well as his more romantic lyrics.

Jeanette Mac Donald plays a young British woman who is engaged to an aristocratic but completely insensitive young man. She, however, is infatuated with her Austrian music teacher, Nelson Eddy. At a party for her engagement, with her mother and various aristocrats in attendance, she sings, to the disapproval of her fiance who is also attached to a young woman who always pronounces the letter R as W. In the passion of the moment, with the teacher intending to return to his home, with the help of one of her friends, she elopes with him.

As they reach Vienna by train, they encounter a military hussar, head shaven, monocled, played with an accent by George Sanders, a dastardly type who later arranges with a restaurant owner to employ Jeanette Mac Donald, but to have her available for his own fancies.

The couple are impoverished, their furniture being sold by their two friends enabling them at least to eat. They decide to sing in the streets and, by chance, come to the attention of an English lord, Ian Hunter, who feels that their singing brings him like at the gambling table (his rival being George Sanders). This leads to some patronage and employment at the restaurant, managed by Sig Ruman.

In the meantime, Nelson Eddy continues his composition, They try to tutor the daughter of a grocer in order to get a chicken, struggling, even when they work at the restaurant, with Nelson Eddy playing and Jeanette Mac Donald waiting to sing.

George Sanders engineers a dastardly set up, with the restaurant owner pretending to invite a musical impresario. The good news is that he is there already at the invitation of the Englishman. The bad news is that Sanders wants to waltz with Jeanette Mac Donald, Nelson Eddy opposing, swords are drawn and Nelson Eddy dies. That is the bitter part of the title.

The sweet part is that the impresario and the English Lord collaborate with Jeanette Mac Donald to complete the operetta and have it performed – the ending with Jeanette Mac Donald and Nelson Eddy appearing in the sky, their singing together.

For fans of the golden years of Hollywood and for the fans of the singing stars – as well as fans of Noel Coward.