fairweatherfan I first saw this movie as a Blockbuster rental with my husband and his late mother - 25 years ago. TCM aired it recently, and we recorded it and watched it on a Saturday night (it IS rather long, at 2 hours and 12 minutes!). I'm not a person who likes to watch movies (or plays, or TV shows) over and over again; when I was a young teenager my girlfriends and I would usually sit through THREE consecutive showings of a film - that must have "cured" me. After 25 years I did remember the highlights (even though my MIL did chat quite a bit during the movie), but I was surprised that I hadn't realized what a great job John Barrymore did! I had always considered him a bombastic stage actor, playing to the back rows of the second balcony. He is so SUBTLE and SINISTER in this. For this viewing I saw Maytime on a pretty-good quality Samsung wall-hung TV, but I truly would love to see it on the big screen, in a theater. The May Day scenes especially deserve that. The lack of color doesn't bother me, though it does remind me of Irving Thalberg's too-early death.

tacprc I just watched Maytime on TCM. Overall I feel that this movie is a bit too long and dull and the outdoor scenes (e.g., Maytime and Paris) are a bit too stereotypical and precious, but it contains two really strong musical numbers that saved the movie for me: the first occurrence of "Will You Remember (Sweatheart)" and the climactic "Czaritza" duet. Not only are the music and singing and orchestration great, but the acting of Eddy and MacDonald is very believable. Jeanette MacDonald looks beautiful in this film, and the costumes, scenery, cinematography, etc. are all first rate. I also enjoyed the reprise of "Will You Remember (Sweatheart)" at the end of the film, but for me it lacked emotional impact because the camera was not focused on the actors' faces. For me the message of the film as delivered by MacDonald to the young woman was a clunker as there was obviously a middle course. And finally the major plot twist near the end of the film was jarring. I can imagine several more realistic scenarios.

TheLittleSongbird Having seen Sweethearts and Rose-Marie and liking them, I saw Maytime expecting to like it. But I found myself loving it. Of these three, Maytime for me has the most believable story, it is poignant and heartfelt yet heart warming too.That's not all though. The production values are rich and beautiful, the songs especially Sweetheart(which I can't get enough of) are superb same with the direction, and the script is sweet and poignant.The performances are wonderful too. Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy work so well together and sing stunningly, while John Barrymore gives my personal favourite support performance of any support actor/actress in a MacDonald-Eddy film.In conclusion, I loved it. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Nodumblonde Of all of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette Macdonald's movies, this one stands out as having such a variety of beautiful music. There are opera songs taken from many operas as well as "ordinary" songs. You may not remember any of the opera songs but the title song, "Maytime," will never leave your musical memory once you hear it.Sometimes it's hard to "suspend disbelief" and not look at "actors" and "technique," but it's easy with this one. Nelson is very believable as the rollicking American with the gorgeous baritone voice and of course, Jeannette MacDonald in the role of a famous opera singer is totally on target.You keep rooting for them to get together and honestly, you won't know until the very end! Sentimentalists--watch this wonderful movie.