MUSICAL FILM REVIVED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 236, 5 October 1935, Page 11

MUSICAL FILM REVIVED.

MAJESTIC, “NAUGHTY MARIETTA.” Following its almost record-breaking season at another city theatre, the spectacular musical picture, “Naughty Marietta” is to be brought back for a further Queen Street season before being released for suburban showing. Adapted from the operetta of Victor Herbert, most famous of all America’s operatic composers, the film is a veritable feast of musical entertainment. Jeayette MacDonald, who is the only singing star to have retained her audiences throughout tue black days of film musicals from 1930-33, is cast in the stellar role of the runaway French princess who takes on the identity of Marietta, a peasant girl bound for the colony of New Orleans, tn order to become wife to some settler in the region. Marietta ran away from a distasteful marriage to a Spanish Royal duke headlong into a marriage contract with an unknoxvn worker in a pioneer land. But romance conies to her rescue in the form of a stahvart and handsome leader of hired scouts, played magnificently by the newcomer Nelson Eddy. He also sings outstandingly. Many splendid numbers are featured, notably the beautiful “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life,” sung by Jeanette solo and later, in the ballroom scene, by Jeanette and Nelson as a duet. Nelson Eddy’s first number—“ Tramp, Tramp, Tramp”—is also well worth hearing. Jeanette sings another enchanting song, “Chansonette,” in the earlier stages of the picture, which are placed in Paris of the lavish pre-revolution days.