Really Surprised!

People are voting emotionally.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

I absolutely adore the operetta and this 1934 film is a real pleasure. It is not quite as good as the operetta, which is my favourite operetta of all time alongside Der Fledermaus, but there are so many things to love. The film looks splendid. I personally love the fashions, while the photography is stylish and the sets beautiful. The performances are first rate, Maurice Chevalier is charming and naughty and Jeanette MacDonald is a revelation. The story is told with style and polish, and the script is witty and acerbic. Two things especially made this film work. One is Lehar's music, which is absolutely magnificent, the overture and the music in the waltz scene show a master at work as does the beautiful Vilja. The other is Ernst Lubitsch's brilliant direction, this film has a rather risqué directorial approach that you see in every scene and this worked. Overall, this film is pleasure and if you love classic film or operetta or both(that's where I fit) I recommend you see The Merry Widow. 10/10 Bethany Cox

An exquisite musical, and one of the best examples of the celebrated "Lubitsch touch". Lubitsch really was the master of sophisticated romantic comedy. Jeanette MacDonald is the widow of the title, whom ladies man Maurice Chevalier woos twice and eventually wins. A lovely confection, with Lubitsch's fluid directing and elegiac camera movements really making it a swell piece of early sound cinema. I loved how he staged the musical numbers, even if I wasn't too fussed over MacDonald's operatic stylings. The film is structurally just about perfect, with the ending "answering" the beginning. Chevalier sings "Girls, Girls, Girls" in the opening scene, yet by the end we know he only wants one girl, the lovely Jeanette. He still has only one thing on his mind, but only one woman on his mind to do it with! Great fun!

The Monarch of Marshovia sends a romantic count to Paris to woo back THE MERRY WIDOW whose vast wealth is vital to running the tiny kingdom.Nine years after producing a non-talking film based on the Franz Lehár operetta, MGM mined the same material again, this time as a musical comedy. The Studio would give the film its trademark opulent treatment, with production values of the highest order. Celebrated lyricist Lorenz Hart was engaged to write words for the music. And, to make absolutely certain of success, director Ernst Lubitsch and stars Maurice Chevalier & Jeanette MacDonald were reunited to duplicate their previous triumphs at Paramount Studios.If, ultimately, the film does not have quite the effervescence of Lubitsch's previous pictures, this is probably understandable. MGM, while wonderful with epics and dramas, often took an unnecessarily heavy-handed approach to subjects which should have been given a lighter, airier treatment. Also, the film was released a few months after the imposition of the Production Code, which obviously had a significant effect upon the movie's final persona.Chevalier & MacDonald continue the on screen relationship already well established in their earlier films: she, the rather aloof and powerful female who needs a good man; he, the social inferior who wins her with his enormous Gallic charm. Their singing is vivacious & charming and sometimes you can almost understand her words.Unlike the 1925 version of THE MERRY WIDOW, there is no villain here to provide dramatic tension. The costars, however, provide much comic amusement. Foremost among them is waspish Edward Everett Horton, very funny as Marshovia's nervous Ambassador in Paris. Rotund George Barbier & sprightly Una Merkel make the most of their small roles as the diminutive nation's conniving King and flirtatious Queen.Some of the smaller roles are also humorously cast: Sterling Holloway as Chevalier's loyal orderly; Donald Meek as the King's gossipy valet; and Herman Bing as Horton's dramatic factotum.Movie mavens will recognize Akim Tamiroff as the head waiter at Maxim's & Arthur Housman as a drunk (what else?) trying to gain entry into that establishment, both uncredited.

Interesting treatment of Lehar's "Merry Widow", almost 30 years after "Die Lustige Witwe" premiered in Vienna. There were many versions of The Merry Widow but this particular story is all jumbled up from the original. It's supposed to open in Paris but instead, we're in Marshovia which gives us a very slow opening. The English translation is by the screenplay writers, Vajda and Raphaelson and the lyrics are by Rodgers and Hart. Don't expect a true-to-the-original story. This story adaptation is okay although the original is charming by itself. However, the actors are very good and funny. The biggest song of the original, "Vilja", is very out of place right at the beginning and seems to have lost its charm by its placement. The widow of the original story is much more innocent - they cast her as a bit strident here. However, it is nice to see a movie that is pre-code. The costumes and the sets are sumptuous and beautiful. Chevalier and MacDonald are very good and Edward Everett Horton is a thorough delight.