A remake of Lubitsch's earlier The Marriage Circle, this is essentially the same movie with two major differences: songs and the guy caught in the middle of the two women, his wife and her best friend, actually goes through with the infidelity. It's a change that introduces a real moral imbalance in the film's final moments that it just tries to glide past without much consideration, and it makes the ending work far less well than the earlier version did, though there's real charm from the leads, in particular around the musical nature of the story.
Dr. Andre Bertier (Maurice Chevalier) is happily wed to his wife Colette (Jeannette MacDonald). In fact, our introduction is a visual motif that Lubitsch has revisited several times over the previous few years where couples are kissing in a park at night only to be interrupted by a policeman (it was even in his segment of Paramount on Parade), except that there's a twist! Andre and Colette are married, and the policeman can't bring himself to write them a ticket. It's cute, and a nice play on Lubitsch's own work. Andre sings directly to the audience about his love for Colette, and then we get our introduction to the other woman, Mitzi (Genevieve Tobin). Married to Professor Olivier (Roland Young), she's obviously not terribly concerned with her husband at all, and when she coincidentally steals Andre's cab without realizing who he is, she immediately hits on him. He's resistant while outright admitting that she's pretty and would if he weren't married, jumping out of the car and admitting that he's a coward for it.
In the original, the Andre character was completely resistant to the Mitzi character's charms, totally dedicated to his wife, so having Andre here admit outright from the beginning that he's tempted by Mitzi is a change. I wasn't sure how it was going to play out, whether it was just going to be a wrinkle in the telling or an outright change, and, of course, it led to an outright change. That's not necessarily bad on its own, but it takes something that works in the original and changes it. Is it for the better? Well, we'll see.
The plot follows along with Mitzi continuing to pursue Andre under Colette's nose while Colette begins to suspect that Andre is trying to have an affair with Mademoiselle Martel (Josephine Dunn), who, like in the original, gets introduced at about the halfway point with barely any build up. There's also Adolph (Charles Ruggles) who is in love with Colette, though this time he's not Andre's business partner. The main centerpiece of the film is the large dinner party where Andre tries to distance himself from Mitzi by moving the name cards at the table of both Mitzi and Martel, which Colette interprets wrong, and the movie splits with the original as Andre decides that he will spend some alone time with Mitzi, the titular one hour that's also the title song which gets sung during the dancing part of the party.
This being the early 30s and Lubitsch, the movie isn't going to show much explicitly, allowing for some small interpretation of events early in the process, but when Andre leaves Colette after the party because her emotional state due to her suspicions of his supposed affair with Martel, he just goes with Mitzi to her apartment. This, of course, gets discovered by Professor Olivier through his private investigator, and Andre tries to lie his way through the situation. This was where I was beginning to waver on the film. It's entertaining, anchored by one of those wonderful Maurice Chevalier performances, and, up to this point, there was just enough gray area about what was actually going on. In the original version, the Andre character did go up, but it was also completely innocent. Once it's revealed that Andre does have his affair, his one hour with her, the whole comic premise kind of falls apart.
When we get to the film's final moments, essentially a direct recreation of The Marriage Circle's ending, it just no longer works. The husband being held accountable for something he doesn't do while the wife tries to make him feel jealous for something she didn't do is amusing. The whole actual affair being just swept away while the wife pretends to have done something she didn't do is completely off balance, and it almost feels malicious towards Colette. And then it ends with the message of "infidelity doesn't matter because we love each other", and none of it feels right. It's not heartwarming. It's just odd.
Up until those final movements, One Hour With You is a fun little remake of The Marriage Circle. Using music, witty dialogue, and some delightful performances, Lubitsch brought his silent film into the sound era, but then the changes go much further in another direction. The comic ending simply ceases to work because the implications are no longer light but heavy, and just brushing it off like it doesn't matter, especially when Colette is anguishing for about half the movie because she thinks Andre is going to have an affair, doesn't make sense from a character point of view. I was disappointed.
Dr. Andre Bertier (Maurice Chevalier) is happily wed to his wife Colette (Jeannette MacDonald). In fact, our introduction is a visual motif that Lubitsch has revisited several times over the previous few years where couples are kissing in a park at night only to be interrupted by a policeman (it was even in his segment of Paramount on Parade), except that there's a twist! Andre and Colette are married, and the policeman can't bring himself to write them a ticket. It's cute, and a nice play on Lubitsch's own work. Andre sings directly to the audience about his love for Colette, and then we get our introduction to the other woman, Mitzi (Genevieve Tobin). Married to Professor Olivier (Roland Young), she's obviously not terribly concerned with her husband at all, and when she coincidentally steals Andre's cab without realizing who he is, she immediately hits on him. He's resistant while outright admitting that she's pretty and would if he weren't married, jumping out of the car and admitting that he's a coward for it.
In the original, the Andre character was completely resistant to the Mitzi character's charms, totally dedicated to his wife, so having Andre here admit outright from the beginning that he's tempted by Mitzi is a change. I wasn't sure how it was going to play out, whether it was just going to be a wrinkle in the telling or an outright change, and, of course, it led to an outright change. That's not necessarily bad on its own, but it takes something that works in the original and changes it. Is it for the better? Well, we'll see.
The plot follows along with Mitzi continuing to pursue Andre under Colette's nose while Colette begins to suspect that Andre is trying to have an affair with Mademoiselle Martel (Josephine Dunn), who, like in the original, gets introduced at about the halfway point with barely any build up. There's also Adolph (Charles Ruggles) who is in love with Colette, though this time he's not Andre's business partner. The main centerpiece of the film is the large dinner party where Andre tries to distance himself from Mitzi by moving the name cards at the table of both Mitzi and Martel, which Colette interprets wrong, and the movie splits with the original as Andre decides that he will spend some alone time with Mitzi, the titular one hour that's also the title song which gets sung during the dancing part of the party.
This being the early 30s and Lubitsch, the movie isn't going to show much explicitly, allowing for some small interpretation of events early in the process, but when Andre leaves Colette after the party because her emotional state due to her suspicions of his supposed affair with Martel, he just goes with Mitzi to her apartment. This, of course, gets discovered by Professor Olivier through his private investigator, and Andre tries to lie his way through the situation. This was where I was beginning to waver on the film. It's entertaining, anchored by one of those wonderful Maurice Chevalier performances, and, up to this point, there was just enough gray area about what was actually going on. In the original version, the Andre character did go up, but it was also completely innocent. Once it's revealed that Andre does have his affair, his one hour with her, the whole comic premise kind of falls apart.
When we get to the film's final moments, essentially a direct recreation of The Marriage Circle's ending, it just no longer works. The husband being held accountable for something he doesn't do while the wife tries to make him feel jealous for something she didn't do is amusing. The whole actual affair being just swept away while the wife pretends to have done something she didn't do is completely off balance, and it almost feels malicious towards Colette. And then it ends with the message of "infidelity doesn't matter because we love each other", and none of it feels right. It's not heartwarming. It's just odd.
Up until those final movements, One Hour With You is a fun little remake of The Marriage Circle. Using music, witty dialogue, and some delightful performances, Lubitsch brought his silent film into the sound era, but then the changes go much further in another direction. The comic ending simply ceases to work because the implications are no longer light but heavy, and just brushing it off like it doesn't matter, especially when Colette is anguishing for about half the movie because she thinks Andre is going to have an affair, doesn't make sense from a character point of view. I was disappointed.