Just what I expected

How sad is this?

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

You can have the best directors, costumes, set designs and musical score in the world, but nothing is going to take away from the fact that this movie celebrates infidelity and makes light of it. As such, it only goes to show that the values of Hollywood film makes haven't changed that much since the 30s. No wonder the Hayes Code put a halt to this moral decay if this is the sort of stuff that was being cranked out. It's not "sophisticated" or "clever" as those who have no moral compass would have you believe. It's immorality glorified at worst or at the very least dismissed as nothing serious enough to break up a marriage.I was expecting a light delightful musical instead what I got is an improbable plot, characters totally unbelievable and a music that was thoroughly forgettable. This "gem" can stay buried forever as far as I am concerned. What a total let down.

Jeanette Macdonald is perhaps best known these days for her series of films with Nelson Eddy in the late 1930s/early 1940s, but this is a good example of her previous teaming with that naughty French export Maurice Chevalier.'One Hour With You' features several great songs plus a fluffy plot around a married couple and misunderstood flirtations - helped a lot by other cast members Genevieve Tobin, Roland Young, and Charles Ruggles. Chevalier's charming persona is served well here in asides to the camera and a couple of great solo numbers, while Macdonald is sparky, beguiling, and a real tease.

A Jeannette McDonald/Maurice Chevalier musical farce, in which a happily married couple have a close encounter with inconstancy—Dr. André Bertier (Chevalier) with his wife's vivacious best friend Mitzi (Genevieve Tobin), and his wife Collette (McDonald)—almost—with his earnest but dull best man Adolphe (Charles Ruggles). It supposedly takes place in Paris, but who can tell? Like most sex farces this one has a set of misunderstandings and complications that get resolved. Mitzi gets divorced and disappears to Lausanne,.delighting her husband (Roland Young), who wants to be with the attractive maid (Barbara Leonard). It almost looks like the Bertiers will be divorcing, but suddenly they forgive each other. McDonald is a passable comedienne, but Chevalier is great, tall, dark-haired, dapper, with a huge grin that suggests he knows he's been bad but he enjoys it so much! There are a few songs, but not too many. Because some components of the screenplay—the cross-purposes with place cards at dinner and the whole tangle of laughing infidels—closely resembles parts of Pas sur la Bouche, it seems clear that they both came out of the 1920s farce the makers of the latter film credit for their original story.

I taped this one off UK TV in 1988 on the off chance it was good, kept it and have seen it about 10 times since. I wonder if a remastered DVD would be a little less murky as this is in places. Although a notch down from "Trouble in Paradise" it would still make it a worthy bookend, same director in Lubitsch, same studio, same year, same lightheartedness. Or maybe a triple bill with "Love me tonight", Mamoulian's masterpiece for my money, or a foursome with Sternberg's "Blonde Venus" if you feel in an even more arty mood.The plot is pretty straightforward, turning the unfaithful wife and cuckolded husband scenario on its head with Roland Young (and his maid) pleased at the situation instead of demanding a duel to the death with Chevalier. The climax seems a little awkwardly handled, but ultimately the end credits plus a final snatch of the theme make it OK. And the music is brilliant and witty, helped by Paramount's brash Orchestra producing some marvellously angular but tuneful interpretations - even with the background noises (and similar in this respect also to the non-musical TIP).Lubitsch re-used the plot from his film "The Marriage Circle", a silent with Adolphe Menjou, and although it has some fine moments is nowhere near as classy as the talkie version is. Being silent it has a completely different ambiance, but it's fun guessing where the songs should go.All of the a/m films are sublime and should be on prescription!