M-G-M romantic heartthrob Ramon Novarro waited till the end of 1929 for his first Talkie. (Even Garbo, last of the big stars to take the plunge, ‘spoke’ on screen only three months later.) The transition seemed to go fine, but was followed, as with so many silent stars, by rapid decline. By the mid-30s, interest had waned and he was on his way out. And while he does well here (singing pleasantly in a silly semi-musical about a Napoleon loyalist hiding as a servant in a Royalist household where he falls for the engaged cousin of a Countess), the seeds of his fall have been planted. As an actor, his ‘attack’ pitched at extremes, manly action or generically dreamy; his youthful beauty turning soft to the touch; the songs (by dull Herbert Stothart) unmemorable. Sadly, once all these problems were fixed on THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE/’34, it was too late to turn the tide. Dorothy Jordan makes a pretty, if pitch challenged, cousin/love interest, while Countess Marion Harris sings well but proves impossible to photograph, never making another feature. Technically, Douglas Shearer’s sound work is uncommonly fine (all the singing ‘live’) while director Sidney Franklin shows unexpectedly deft camera moves for the period and keeps a lively pace. But going with a moth-eaten theater piece by opera librettist Eugène Scribe (who died in the mid-1800s) is anyone’s guess.
DOUBLE-BILL: Earlier this year, Novarro had a final silent hit with THE PAGAN/’29. (not seen here)
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Note the Spanish-language poster. It was common before subtitles & dubbing to shoot foreign language versions in tandem with the original. Did that happen here?
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Just before the end, a short 2-strip TechniColor ballet (a mess in turquoise & orange) scored by Dmitri Tiomkin in his first Hollywood gig.
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