Musical Adventure Story Will Attract

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 196, 21 August 1935, Page 11

Musical Adventure Story Will Attract

JEANETTE MACDONALD AND NELSON EDDY ABE STABBED (Eegeut: Screening Saturday.Choice of “Naughty Marietta,” Victor Herbert’s classic operetta, as the vehicle for filming the screen’s first great musical adventure story, has brought to picture audiences one of the greatest musi-cal-works ever composed. Produced on a spectacular scale by Metro-oroiawyn-xviayer, it nas Jeanette MacDonald, acknowledged as one of the greatest singing stars of the American screen, and Nelson Eddy, American operatic baritone, hailed “as a sensational ‘‘discovery” among romantic leading men, as its stars. It was filmed as a thundering drama of tlio romantic Creole days of ISt. Louis, a'vehicle that gives to famous Victor Herbert music the importance it merits. /'Naughty Marietta” is acknowledged one of the five greatest comic operas ever composed in America, the others being Do Koven’s “Bobin Hood,” and Herbert’s “Serenade,” “Fortune Teller,” and “Mile. Modiste.”

It was first produced in the New. York Theatre, November 7, 1910, by Oscar Hauunersteiu, with Emma Trentini, from grand opera, and Orville Harrold. Herbert’s music had a libretto by Bida Johnson Young. It took the country by storm. “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life,” one of its greatest songs, remains popular to this day and is hailod as one of America’s masterpieces. “I’m Falling in Love with Someone” is another song that has come down the years as popular to-day as at its premiere.

Herbert, America’s greatest romantic composer, was born in Ireland, received liis musical education in Gednmny, and then went to America where lie . composed his great musical shows. Among them were “Naughty Marietta” “Babes in Toyland,” “It Happened in Nordland,” “Bose of Algeria” (in which, the late Lon Chaney was a comedian), “Wizard of the Nile” and “The “Idol’s Eye.” He also wroto a grand ojiera, “Natoma.” Mctro-Goldwyn-Maver’s screen transcription of “Naughty Marietta” takes on as much importance as its original stage premiere because of the unique handling of tho story. Tho old comic opera libretto was laid aside, and the stirring incidents, historical facts and dramatic thrills referred to in dialogue iii the. stage version are.actually shown. The importation of the Casquette girls from France to mate with, tho settlers in Louisianna, the New Orleans marriage auction, the battlo of the Everglades, the pirate capture of tho Casquette ship, the Paris of Louis XV and other authentic and dramatic details of tlio history of tho founding of one of America’s most romantic cities wore woven into a thrilling adventure romance, directed by a master of adventure, W. S. Van Dyke, of ‘ ‘ Trader Horn, ” “ Thin Man, ” ‘ ‘ Manhattan Melodrama,” “Tho Pagan,” “Cuban Love Song,’ and other successes. Miss MacDonald plays a princess who masquerades as a Casquette girl, and Nelson Eddy a British officer in New Orleans. Their songs are backed by a huge symphony orchestra, a chorus of a hundred voices, and many musical novelties fitted into the score by Herbert Stotliart, famous American composer and one-time associate of Herbert. An elaborate cast surrounds the famous singing principals, including Frank Morgan, Elsa Lanchester (Mrs Charles Laughton), Douglas Dumbriilc, Joseph Cawthorne, Cecilia Parker, Walter Kiugsford, Greta Meyer, Akim Tamiroff, Harold Huber and Edward Drophv.