Movie Review – The Merry Widow

The Merry Widow (1934)
Written by Victor Léon, Leo Stein, Ernest Vajda, and Samson Raphaelson
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch

By the mid-1930s, Hollywood was worried by the talk from Washington, D.C., about the content of their films. The puritanical didn’t like what they saw coming from the West Coast, and discussions surrounding potential censoring had started. To head that off, the film industry chose to self-regulate and had then-Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) president Will H. Hays lead the development of a list of restrictions the studios would agree to. Key among these was the removal of nudity (explicit or suggested) or “any inference of sex perversion.” These were among the Don’ts, but there was also a list of twenty-six “Be Carefuls” which included anything related to sex. Thus began an era where American cinema failed to acknowledge a primary tenant of the human experience. But before that was rolled out, we got one of the most expensive & impressive pre-code movies.

Based on the 1905 operetta of the same name, which in turn was based on an 1861 French stage comedy, The Merry Widow is the story of Madame Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald), the titular character who owns a majority of the economy & land of Marshovia. While she is a widow, her marriage lasted four days, and she’s spent the last year in mourning with plans to divest a large portion of her inheritance and move away. That would mean the ownership of much of Marshovia going to some other, possibly nefarious party, so the government has to do something. Captain Danilo (Maurice Chevalier) is a horndog who is ordered by the king to seduce Madame Sonia, get her to fall in love with him, and not sell off her fortune.

Unlike most of Lubitsch’s films, this is a musical using the original operetta with some modern updating for the time. The sets are lavish, and the costumes are as well. It ended up being one of the most expensive pre-code films ever made. The sexual innuendo here is probably the most blatant you will ever see, implying Lubitsch knew the glory days of Hollywood were ending, and he needed to make the most of it. Danilo frequents a Parisian brothel and has even gifted one of the sex workers a garter with “Many Happy Returns” stitched on it. During Danilo’s seduction of Madame Sonia, he says, “Your right eye says yes, and your left eye says no. Fifi, you’re cockeyed!” As she changes, we get implied nudity and brief glimpses of Madame Sonia in lingerie. Danilo ends up on trial in the film’s last act, and a piece of evidence brought before the court to show his attempts to woo the widow is a large sausage. Again, we perceive the “old days” as chaste, but that’s simply the work of censorious Puritans.

Jeannette MacDonald feels very contemporary. Something about her look, confidence, and the way she carries herself feels like she’d fit right in on the screen today. She holds her own against Chevalier’s Danilo, not letting him win her over quickly. Madame Sonia is very aware of his sleeping around with any woman who gives a glance in his direction. She tracks him down before they meet face to face, finding him at his favorite Paris brothel. He mistakes her for one of the employees, leading her to a room to get down to business; Sonia resists, having sized this guy up and knowing what he’s after. At one point, she opens a door, and a group of sex workers waiting for a signal from Danilo enters en masse. Sonia’s retort is excellent: “Here they are, all your little ‘tonight’s. And not a tomorrow among them.”

This is the first Lubitsch musical I have seen and the only one I’ll be watching in this series, but he apparently made some for Paramount, which are held in high esteem. The Merry Widow gets mixed opinions from what I have seen, and it’s certainly not the best musical I’ve watched. It’s a comic operetta, a subgenre not suited to everyone’s taste. The songs are very silly, and you don’t have any showstopping ballads. He makes fantastic use of space, though. The sets in this film are monolithic, and there’s clearly some camera trickery at work that accentuates this aspect. Lubitsch also built many of the foundational elements of modern American cinema, making his work feel so much ahead of its time than his contemporaries.

The film takes place in a cartoon-like world, and Lubitsch loves doing all sorts of tricks with the camera. This is done through slight visual touches like Madame Sonia’s black outfit juxtaposed against the all-white surroundings of her boudoir. We also see it in more visually comical ways, like her old dog with black fur transforming into a young golden-haired pup when she moves past her mourning phase. This is Lubitschland, so despite the nation being located in Europe, their king and queen (George Barbier & Una Merkel) sound like born & bred American character actors, which they are. There’s also a guard played by Sterling Holloway, the original voice of Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh, which you will know the minute you hear him speak.

The best adjective to describe The Merry Widow is “fun.” It’s Lubitsch enjoying this last moment of cinematic freedom before he and the writers have to start hiding things even more. From open to close, this film is all about comedy, creating moments for our characters to engage in witty banter or confusion over someone’s identity. It’s the type of situational comedy that has been mined by many lesser filmmakers and television writers, so you must go back to the source and see how good these things can be before they are watered down or copied by people who don’t understand the structure of the comedy in the first place.