The Merry Widow
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Year Released: 1934
Rating: 1.0
You're going to have to excuse me for liking the von Stroheim film a little more than this (it's hard to say no to that director's love for subversive sexuality), although neither film is especially memorable. I, as a rule, dislike a good deal of musicals – I could go on forever as to why, and have in the past – and this isn't in my "acceptable" pile, mostly because Maurice Chevalier doesn't act so much as stand erect and look interested and because the movie grows less involving as it goes on, leading to every woman's dream: locking up the man she loves in jail to make him stop his philandering ways (of course it works, though this is only a movie). The love relationship isn't believable – they fall for each other because that's what the script demands – although that's often the case in many a picture.
