ONE HOUR WITH YOU

US, 1932, 80 minutes, Black and white.
Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette Mac Donald, Genevieve Tobin, Charles Ruggles, Roland Young.
Directed by George Cukor, Ernst Lubitsch.

One Hour With You is very brief in its eighty minutes running time. However, it was one of the nominees for Oscar for best film of 1932.

It is particularly French, French sex farce. This was pre-production code and a glimpse of the synopsis makes it sound quite permissive. It was against this kind of film that the Motion Picture Code set its sights.

Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette Mac Donald appeared simultaneously in a French language version of this film, Jeanette Mac Donald speaking fluent French.

The film focuses on a husband and wife, the wife’s best friend, the husband of the wife wanting a divorce, the wife herself having a roving eye… There are escapades, identity problems, confessions. Ernst Lubitsch was adept at this kind of film. George Cukor was at the beginning of his long career (directing many stars to Oscars and getting an Oscar for himself for the direction of My Fair Lady (1964).

The film includes a number of songs with Jeanette Mac Donald singing contemporary songs. Three years later she was to join with Nelson Eddy in a series of eight operettas at MGM. However, following One Hour With You, she and Maurice Chevalier teamed for Love Me Tonight under the direction of Rouben Mamoulian. Lubitsch then directed Chevalier and Mac Donald in a 1934 version of The Merry Widow.

1. How enjoyable a film? The touch of the director, Ernst Lubitsch: humour, comedy of manners, comedy of morals, sly digs at morality, especially marriage and sexual morality?

2. The quality of the film as a product of 1932? The use of sound, the songs? Black and white photography, the styles and stylishness? The impact of the stars?

3. The quality of the film as a comedy of manners: the emphases on traditional morality, the risks, the risque tones, drawing room morality, society, the overtones of Parts and France? What stance on marriage and love did the film take? With its light touch?

4. The initial invitation to participate, by Maurice Chevalier? Audience
response to this? Interest in the character, his role as a doctor, his love for his wife, the predicament with Mitzi? The ambiguous situations, his lack of resolution, the final resolution? The importance of his asking the audience to judge for themselves? How easily could audiences identify with the characters and the questions?

5. The character of his wife? Conventional, daring and risque at the end with Adolph? Her asking the audience to make judgements?

6. The themes of marriage and the treatment? The strengths and weakness of such marriage, relationship between husband and wife, the significance of the songs and their lyrics, the party and its ambiguity, the break-up of the marriage, the revenge, the happy ending?

7. The delineation of the character of Mitzi? The satire on this kind of woman and her breaking of marriages?

8. The ambiguity of the character of the professor? His wanting to trap Mitzi and yet his two-faced attitudes? His pressure on the doctor? His getting a divorce?

9. The comedy in the character of Adolph? His presentation as the stooge?

10. The enjoyment value of this kind of film? Its value as a comedy of morals?