... and believe it or not that weirdness factor alone - the factor of a director (Joe May) and one of the writers (Billy Wilder) both being people who found themselves in the American film industry precisely BECAUSE of them fleeing Hitler's Germany and yet painting a picture of Germany in which none of these fascists exist - earned this one an extra star from me just for the curiosity of it all. Without that curiosity factor this is a rather mediocre film. In fairness, this film was adapted from a 1932 musical that was, of course, pre Hitler.
At first I believed that this was all taking place in another time. The initial small town setting in Bavaria with horse drawn carriages and the traditional German garb complete with lederhosen allowed me to believe that. But then the small town folk arrive in Munich and when I saw the modern buildings, automobiles, and modern fashions (1934 that is) I realized I was in present day Germany, and I was thrown for a loop.
The script is the typical output of early 30's pre Zanuck Fox which primarily made films for rural audiences and talked up the values of rural life. A small town Bavarian composer ( Al Shean as Dr. Walter Lessing) is honored by the town fathers with a financed trip to Munich so he can try and advance his music. His daughter Sieglinde (June Lang) will accompany him. Karl Roder (Douglass Montgomery), the town schoolteacher, and Sieglinde have an understanding, so naturally he feels protective. So he joins a group of mountain climbers and hikes over the mountains to Munich to look after them both.
Meanwhile in Munich a couple consisting of singing actress Frieda Hotzfelt (Gloria Swanson) and composer/actor Bruno Mahler (John Boles) are constantly feuding. In fact they say they have been feuding for seven years but have been involved all of that time, yet are not married. At about the same time they are at the height of an argument that, to tell you the truth, looks silly and contrived, in come the professor, his daughter, and Karl seeking the professor's old music publishing friend. Bruno's partner in writing the music for a new show has left town, leaving an opening for the professor to get at least one of his songs into the show. Gloria is attracted to Karl, and seems to want to make a gigilo out of him as she packs for Venice and begs him to come along. Bruno thinks that Sieglinde would make a great new star to replace Freida. Will big town life corrupt these Bavarian babes in the woods? Watch and find out.
There really is one good song in the bunch - "I've Told Every Little Star" - and fortunately that is the one that is repeated the most. As for Bruno and Freida, they are portrayed ridiculously. There seems to be no substance to their arguing, and even though they are given German names they sound and act as American as apple pie when the film took great pains to make everybody else in the cast sound German. I've seen John Boles in a number of roles in the 30's and even the 20's (The Desert Song) and he was always believable, so I guess I have to lay the blame on him coming across as a ham on the director. I could say the same for Ms. Swanson. This was her last feature film role until 1941, and then she had no other role in a feature film until Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard". I wonder if them working together on this film had anything to do with that?
