Sweethearts (1938)

A popular Broadway married couple (Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy) are still passionately in love after six years of marriage and 2,946 performances of the Victor Herbert operetta SWEETHEARTS. But when they decide to accept an offer from Hollywood to go into motion pictures, the show's producer (Frank Morgan) and his associates concoct a plan to prevent them from doing so. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke (THE THIN MAN). I'm not a fan of the MacDonald and Eddy movies but this is their best film. This is due to the witty script courtesy of Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell (1937's A STAR IS BORN) as well as the amusing supporting cast. This is not a film version of the 1913 Victor Herbert operetta but an entirely new story with its protagonists starring in a production of the Herbert musical. It was also MGM's first film in the three strip Technicolor process and MacDonald and Eddy's first "contemporary" film which allows MacDonald to wear an array of glamorous frocks courtesy of Adrian. Fortunately, MacDonald knows her way around a witty line (after all, she made four movies with Ernest Lubitsch) and even Eddy manages to get it right. Alas, we still have to put up with her trilling and his bellowing but in this case, the screenplay is good enough to compensate for that. With Ray Bolger, Frank Morgan, Mischa Auer, Lucile Watson, Allyn Joslyn, Florence Rice and Reginald Gardiner.