I just watched MacDonald/Eddy's other 1940 movie, Bittersweet, before this. It's really a study in contrasts. I found Bittersweet to be long and, largely, tedious. It took itself too seriously, didn't have very interesting music, etc.
The movie, however, while I wouldn't rank it with the best early MacDonald/Eddy movies, was still a lot more fun, and certainly had a lot better music.
The end left me with a question. A French ship arrives on the island where the rebels/pirates and the women have created a successful colony. It turns out that it brings news of the French Revolution. The King has been overthrown and France is now a republic. (It didn't happen that fast in reality, but this is not a History Channel documentary.) Eddy speaks of "Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood." We then see a band of pirates/rebels with their firearms over their shoulders marching off. To what? Why? Was this meant to strike contemporary audiences - the movie opened in New York on July 18, 1940, but was of course in production before that - as a reference to the French marching off to war against the Germans, who had invaded Poland in September, 1939, and would arrive in France in May, 1940? If so, it must have seemed very strange, as France had capitulated just a month before the movie opened, when Marshall Pétain requested an armistice on June 17, 1940.
The movie, however, while I wouldn't rank it with the best early MacDonald/Eddy movies, was still a lot more fun, and certainly had a lot better music.
The end left me with a question. A French ship arrives on the island where the rebels/pirates and the women have created a successful colony. It turns out that it brings news of the French Revolution. The King has been overthrown and France is now a republic. (It didn't happen that fast in reality, but this is not a History Channel documentary.) Eddy speaks of "Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood." We then see a band of pirates/rebels with their firearms over their shoulders marching off. To what? Why? Was this meant to strike contemporary audiences - the movie opened in New York on July 18, 1940, but was of course in production before that - as a reference to the French marching off to war against the Germans, who had invaded Poland in September, 1939, and would arrive in France in May, 1940? If so, it must have seemed very strange, as France had capitulated just a month before the movie opened, when Marshall Pétain requested an armistice on June 17, 1940.