Wistful, bittersweet operetta seemingly belonging to a time considerably earlier than 1935; it has elements of "Maytime," "The Student Prince," and, yes, "Bitter Sweet" in its plotting and sentimentality. (And leading lady Evelyn Laye, who is extraordinary, had in fact starred in "Bitter Sweet" on Broadway.) But Romberg and Hammerstein, whether au courant at the time or not, chose to write sincerely and with feeling, and MGM trotted out some good screenwriters and excellent production values to realize their vision. The result is an operetta familiar in its doomed-love-among-different-classes plotting, but integrated in a then-modern way, with characters subtly switching into song on the flimsiest of excuses. It's really charming, and Novarro, in his MGM farewell, is dashing and gentlemanly. Charles Butterworth, who had played this sort of part for Hammerstein on the stage in "Sweet Adeline," is a delightful underplaying buffoon, and his vis-a-vis, Una Merkel, gets more screen time than she was generally allowed. Rosalind Russell, as the well-bred woman Novarro must marry (like I said, it's very like "The Student Prince") isn't interesting at this point in her career, but Edward Everett Horton had by now perfected his fussy-major-domo characterization and does it to a T. Well directed by the nearly unknown Dudley Murphy, and lovely to look at.
Review of The Night Is Young
