just watch it!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

"One Hour With You" which seemed so fast and so risqué when I first saw it back in 1955, now looks somewhat slow and even tame. Nonetheless, there is still a lot that provides amusement and solid entertainment in the film. If the central situation is no longer as amusing as it was and if the film seems somewhat stage-bound by an excess of dialogue (some of it delivered at a rather slow pace), there is still some witty lines and ingratiating performances — particularly by Maurice Chevalier, Genevieve Tobin, Charlie Ruggles and in a brief appearance at the very beginning of the film, George Barbier. Mr. Young is agreeable but belongs to the slow delivery school and as for that arch songstress, Jeanette MacDonald, she seems to have strayed into this confection from an altogether different film, her acting is too studied and her singing too operatic to harmonize with the other members of the cast. Still, once accepted, she is not too much of a liability. Chevalier is perfect, both in song and performance, and has just the right light yet mock-serious approach to both. The songs are entrancing and the orchestrations a delight — thank heavens Lubitsch uses them and other background music to underscore most of the action. When there is no music, the proceedings are sometimes rather heavy going.Lubitsch fans will revel in this film. There are plenty of examples of his famous touch: characters walking up and down stairs, and especially his use of off-screen action, or bits of business like Chevalier and MacDonald switching the light on and off in their bedroom.The costumes are dated but attractive. The soft focus photography shines on a properly proportioned theatre screen but does not come across so well on TV. The songs, music and orchestrations are feet- tappingly delightful, the art direction is attractive and production values leave nothing to be desired.

Over the past month my wife and I have been on a Lubitsch bender. His films are completely intoxicating as he invites the viewers to a fantasy world where wealthy people cavort around and constantly get into trouble with the opposite sex.One Hour With You is no different, as Maurice Chevalier's aw-shucks smile and French charm are on center stage as he considers an affair with his wife's best friend. It is a musical, but not in the traditional Hollywood sense; rather a more subtle approach where it just might actually be possible for these characters to break into song. There were some down moments in this movie, which is extremely rare in anything Lubitsch. They are few and far between, however, and there are some laugh out loud moments as Chevalier justifies his actions to the audience, since, after all, he is only doing what any of us would do. The good far outweighs the less than great, and One Hour is well worth the watch.Rating: 30/40

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.

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.