The songs are the key to the success of Naughty Marietta, the first collaboration between Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, a successful pairing of talented, classically trained singers. The story is a slight one, of course, but you don't really watch a film like Naughty Marietta for the depth of its plot. You want to hear MacDonald and Eddy singing. Solo performances, duets--whatever it takes. I found it tough to stop smiling throughout this film, despite my ignorance of operatic singing and my reluctance to fall for some of the more unrealistic elements of the plot. In the end, MacDonald and Eddy won me over.
MacDonald is the charming Marie, a princess who has been promised to a man she does not love, Don Carlos from Spain. He arrives with a black wedding dress and plans to proceed with the marriage as quickly as possible. She feels as trapped as the birds that she keeps in her aviary at home--one of the most heavy-handed symbols ever put on film. She wants to be free to choose her own husband, so rather than submit to her uncle's will, she trades places with a servant named Marietta and sails for America on a ship filled with women. (She lets the birds free before she leaves, too, just so you don't miss out on the obvious symbolism.) These women are so-called "casquette girls," who have accepted a dowry from the French king as a condition of their marrying colonists once they arrive in America.
A reward is offered for Marietta's return, so she has to assume a disguise in order not to be detected. It's really just a pair of glasses and a plain dress, a sort of precursor to the set-up of those teen make-over movies that do the same thing with the girl who's going to be revealed to be a great beauty before the film's end. Do film makers really think that glasses make people so unappealing and so unrecognizable? Nevertheless, Marietta successfully escapes being discovered, and she even bonds with one of the girls on the boat, a romantic dreamer named Julie (Cecelia Parker), who still thinks she will fall in love with the man she eventually marries.
An attack by a pirate ship and a rescue by a group of mercenary scouts led by Eddy's Captain Warrington leave Marietta and the other women in the care of the soldiers. The fight between the mercenaries and the pirates, unsurprising, is completely unrealistic, but we know it's merely a plot device to get MacDonald and Eddy together so that they can begin some verbal and vocal sparring. He finds out that she isn't interested in marriage the way the other women are, and he begins calling her "your highness" due to her superior attitude. Eddy's performance in these scenes is pretty overwrought, to be honest, but he's not really called upon to act here. He's just meant to be the center of attention. Then again, it's tough not to be noticed when you lead your men through the forest singing "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" at the top of your lungs.
It is easy to see why MacDonald's Marietta would find Eddy's Warrington attractive. He is completely unlike Don Carlos; Warrington is a man of action, not leisure. He's decked out in fringed buckskin and a racoon hat, and he possesses a strong voice for singing. He also has a sense of confidence that can be mistaken for arrogance, but of course, he has to come across that way at first in order to make their inevitable romance more enticing. The fact that he says his men are all happily unmarried might cause a raised eyebrow or too, but you know someone as handsome as Warrington has many women who would be interested in him. MacDonald, too, is appealing. She has a strong sense of her own identity and what she wants, and she is everyone's equal when it comes to quick-wittedness. And, no matter whether she's wearing an expensive gown or the garb of an ordinary woman, she also manages to look beautiful. Her hair and make-up are always flawless, perhaps a stretch for a woman in the backwoods of Louisiana, but again, we aren't searching for realism in a film like this one.
She lies to Gov. d'Annard (Frank Morgan) about her moral character in order to avoid having to fulfill the contractual obligation to marry. That's apparently how she acquires the title designation of "naughty." Shockingly, this intrigues the governor even more, and he tries to conspire with Warrington to bring Marietta to him. Of course, Warrington has his own designs on Marietta, and the governor's wife, played with archness by Elsa Lanchester, intends to keep her husband as far away from Marietta and the other women as possible. Warrington finds Marietta singing in a puppet show and starts to take her to various locations around the city, even taking a canoe ride at one point so that he can sing "I'm Falling in Love with Someone" to her and she can swoon over his singing. People don't swoon in movies the way they used to, and MacDonald shows how it's supposed to be done here.
When news of who Marietta truly is reaches New Orleans, she is forced to revert to her previous way of life, with everyone bowing down to her and treating her as a princess destined to marry someone of a noble background. She finds it all rather boring after her adventures with Warrington. Her uncle (Douglas Dumbrille) and Don Carlos (Walter Kingsford) make the trip across the Atlantic to carry her back to France. It's at a ball given for their honor that Marietta finally sings the song she's been trying to write throughout the film, a song that expresses how she truly feels about Warrington. The song is "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life," perhaps the most famous number associated with this film and its source material, and it's what prompts Warrington to attempt to rescue her and take him with her into the wilderness and on to the West where they can be together without interference from anyone else.
There are several scenes that should indicate to you that the storyline is not the most important aspect here. At the film's beginning, for example, Marietta goes to a pet shop to purchase some lovebirds. She also gets a puppy, and when she goes to visit her old singing teacher, the puppy comes along as a gift. It's a very musical building she visits. Each floor serenades the princess, and the puppy just keeps following her as she climbs higher and higher to hear the next level of music. She eventually listens to four floors of music, only to have people in other buildings also start to sing to her. I started to think the whole movie might just be an extension of this one song. In all, MacDonald and Eddy and the various members of the chorus make their way through eleven numbers, especially impressive for a film that clocks in at a brisk 105 minutes or so. That's a lot of music in a short period of time.
The film is based on the famous operetta by Victor Herbert, and most of the music is Herbert's. There are additional lyrics in some songs to adapt them to the setting for the film, changed a bit from the original stage production, but for the most part, Eddy and MacDonald are performing the originals. My limited knowledge of operettas includes the notion that they are meant to be rather light-hearted, typically romantic in nature and often comedic in tone. Naughty Marietta certainly represents those traits, and it's an entertaining introduction to the duo of MacDonald and Eddy that would star in eight films together.
Oscar Win: Best Sound Recording
Other Oscar Nomination: Outstanding Production
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