Romantic Introduction Of Theme Song

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7064, 25 January 1933, Page 5

Romantic Introduction Of Theme Song

NOVEL IDEA INTRODUCED IN “LOVE ME TONIGHT.”

Years ago director Reuben Mamoulian would sit at his grandmother’s feet as she told fairy tales. The most popuar theme was of a princo at whose feet the wind dropped a princess’s handkerchief. Ho would then ride away on his horse and find her. When Mamoulian set to work on Maurice Chevalier’s Paramount picture, “Love Me Tonight,” which comes to the Regent on Friday night, he sought to modernise this wind-wafting idea. He has done it in song; and the song changes like tho famed chameleon. Chevalier sings it in his tiny tailor shop as a foxtrot. A customer swaggers out humming it in one-step time; he passes a taxi-driver who picks up to whistle in a lilting fashion. A composer enters the taxi, hears the tune, and sets it down in waltz mode. He contin- . .ues to write it on a train. Soldiers pick it up and' leave the train, singing it as a march. A gipsy boy is inspired by it and plays it on his violin in gipsy fashion. The music comes to Jeanette MacDonald, and she completes it as a ballad.

In this manner is the fairy tale theme brought up to date. The number “Isn’t It Romantic?” will probably be one of the most outstanding song hits in a long time.

Just 17 years ago Ralph Bollamv made his first visit to Universal City. It had been opened only two months and was being “boosted” by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce as one of the sights of the city. It cost 25 cents to get in, and Bellamy and his mother stood and watched Henry Mcßae make a Universal serial. Moßao is still making them, his current work being “The Jungle Mystery,” by Talbot Mundy. Ralph Bellamy recently completed his role in “Airmail.”

David Manners, whose most recent appearance for RKO was opposite Constanco Bennett in “Lady With a Past,” has been assigned to an important part in “Bill of Divorcement,” RKO Radio’s screen version of Clemonco Dane’s famous play, which ran for moro than a year both in Now York and London. In “Bill of Divorcement” Manners joined a notable cast headed by John Barrymore and Billie Burke, and including Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Pattcrion, Gail Evers and Reginald Owen-