Naughty Marietta

Movie Information

In Brief: Ah sweet mystery of life, I wish you'd stayed lost. It's hard to imagine a film more thoroughly outside my proverbial wheelhouse than W.S. Van Dyke's 1935 adaptation of Victor Herbert's 1910 operetta Naughty Marietta. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against opera in the traditional sense — schmaltzy movie melodramas with extensive musical components, however? I'll pass. The film is certainly historically significant, popularizing songs such as "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life at Last I've Found You" and marking the first of pairing of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, classically trained opera singers who would become a massively popular on-screen duo throughout the '30s before their popularity waned abruptly in the following decade — possibly due in part to salacious rumors of an off-screen affair that seem likely to be based in fact. MacDonald and Eddy do share exceptional chemistry, and there's nothing technically wrong with the film — so while I'm decidedly not a fan, your mileage may vary.
Score:

Genre: Musical Romance
Director: W. S. Van Dyke
Starring: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Frank Morgan, Elsa Lanchester, Akim Tamiroff
Rated: NR

The Hendersonville Film Society will show Naughty Marietta on Sunday, July 2 at 2 p.m. in the Smoky Mountain Theater at Lake Pointe Landing Retirement Community, 333 Thompson St., Hendersonville.

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