Love Me Tonight
| Love Me Tonight | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Rouben Mamoulian |
| Produced by | Rouben Mamoulian |
| Written by |
Samuel Hoffenstein George Marion Jr. Waldemar Young |
| Starring |
Maurice Chevalier Jeanette MacDonald Charles Ruggles Charles Butterworth Myrna Loy |
| Music by |
Richard Rodgers (music) Lorenz Hart (lyrics) |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
|
Release date
|
August 18, 1932 |
|
Running time
|
104 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Love Me Tonight is a 1932 American Pre-Code musical comedy film produced and directed by Rouben Mamoulian, with music by Rodgers and Hart. It stars Maurice Chevalier as a tailor who poses as a nobleman and Jeanette MacDonald as a princess with whom he falls in love. It also stars Charles Ruggles as a penniless nobleman, along with Charles Butterworth and Myrna Loy as members of his family.
The film is an adaptation by Samuel Hoffenstein, George Marion Jr. and Waldemar Young of the play Le Tailleur au château by Paul Armont and Léopold Marchand. It features the classic Rodgers and Hart songs "Love Me Tonight", "Isn't it Romantic?", "Mimi", and "Lover". "Lover" is sung not romantically, as it often is in nightclubs, but comically, as MacDonald's character tries to control an unruly horse. The staging of "Isn't It Romantic?" was revolutionary for its time, combining both singing and film editing, as the song is passed from one singer (or group of singers) to another, all of whom are at different locales.
In 1990, Love Me Tonight was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The story describes an encounter between a Parisian tailor named Maurice Courtelin (Chevalier) and a family of local . These include Vicomte Gilbert de Varèze (Ruggles), who owes Maurice a large amount of money for tailoring work; Gilbert's uncle the Duc d'Artelines (C. Aubrey Smith), the family patriarch; d'Artelines' man-hungry niece Valentine (Loy); and his other 22-year-old niece, Princesse Jeanette (MacDonald), who has been a widow for three years. D'Artelines has been unable to find Jeanette a new husband of suitable age and rank. The household also includes three aunts and an ineffectual suitor the Comte de Savignac (Butterworth).
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