cynthiahost This is another early excellent example of Ernest Lubish musical talkie. It isn't overacted or staged .Jeannette plays a countess who runs way with her maid on a train to escape the umpteenth time to marry an pipsqueak an a count. She decides to go to Monte Carlo with her last franks in hope to gamble to make a lot of money so she can be independent. A gambling opportunist, played by a very young Jack Buchnanan, with his friend sees her ,befor she goes to the gambling house being superstitious rubbing a mans back for good luck and paying him for it.He follows her and ask her if she needs good luck by rubbing his hair.She ignores him. But as soon as they get close he continues to reject him but rubs his hair,. He goes in to observes that she's winning. All of a sudden she loses and he feels real bad about it.Trys to contact her to try to make up for it she rejects him. So when he and his friend meets her beautician he gets him to allow himself to play her beautician to get into her room. He almost makes a mess trying to fix her hair. She ends up hiring him as her chauffeur and cook. she goes to the bank to found out she's broke.He fiancés is trying to look for her and discovers he went Montiecarlo. He finds her and she felt that she had no choice but to marry him for his money which he finds novel. Earlier she has to fire him but keeps him on when she goes back with fiancé.He admits to her partially that he's a gambler and agrees' to help her win money going out together pretending he's not her beautician.But they end up falling in love and not gambling. Her maid play by Zazu Pitts suggest she dump him. She does regretfully. for weeks looks for him until she calls the right barber shop when he's getting a shave . He answer's the phone and rejects her . Later on shows up at her place only to professionally fix her hair but she want him to go to the opera with her. He turns her down. As she goes to the operas late, in which her pipsqueak of a fiancé is already at the theater. Paramount adapted from their Rudolph Valentino silent Monseur Vocare as a fictitious operetta at the Monticarlo opera house. Thats when she discovers that he's there and that he is count. Another standard was written for the screen Beyond the blue Horizon. the song title was used later on in another movie staring Dorothy Lamour but it was a different story.

mrdonleone I'm going to try to convince you that this picture is not as good as they say, it bored me like hell. please don't forget that I like the genre, romantic comedies rule (especially Les Pärapluies de Cherbourg). but I don't know, maybe I felt bad about it because I just had an exam or maybe I didn't like the length of it (90 minutes) because I still had to go to school. so yes, maybe the movie was interesting, because I watched it until the end was long gone.but I'm afraid I will have to confess I only watched this because it was standing in my book with hard to find movie titles in it. maybe I sound a bit negative, which I am not, let me assure you that I can be happy with a small gift. and yes, Jack Buchanan does in fact steal the audiences attention completely to him. but than again, if you like Buchanan, go see The Band Wagon and not this Monte Carlo (even though he doesn't sing bad in here).so why did I wrote this review, beginning with saying I would prove you the film is not as good as they say it is, writing down why I didn't like the picture? that's no argument. well, maybe it's just a bad movie in my eyes, go see it and judge this picture yourself.

Cyke 102: Monte Carlo (1930) - released 8/27/1930, viewed 6/23/08.KEVIN: I feel compelled to keep this brief, because I don't think this movie will stick with me. I didn't hate it, I just couldn't fall in love with it like I usually do with Ernst Lubitsch. There were plenty of enjoyable moments to keep me watching until the end, but I found the love story somewhat confusing. I blame this on Jack Buchanan as the male lead. His character is not only a liar, but a manipulator and stalker, and I must say there wasn't anything terribly charming about him. Buchanan played him just too creepy for me to root for him. Jeanette MacDonald was excellent, as usual, but her growing infatuation with this creep was what really confused me. I suspect when we've watched all of Lubitsch's other hits, this one will not rank so high.DOUG: Only Ernst Lubitsch could make such a breezy, likable comedy with such despicable characters. Jeanette MacDonald plays the flighty, naïve Countess Helene, who ditches her wedding to head off somewhere fun and ends up in Monte Carlo. Jack Buchanen plays Count Rudolph, a total creep who decides to court Helene by getting hired as her barber and stalking her at every turn. Claud Allister plays Prince Otto, the dim-witted older man Helene is set to marry. The proceedings are amusing in that fun Lubitsch kind of way; everyone's just on the edge of crazy throughout and are all the more enjoyable for it. The love story is rather dated though; I found Rudy to be an obsessive manipulative loon, scheming his way into her bedroom and saving locks of her hair. Because it's Lubitsch, it's all fluffy and lighthearted, but this is maybe my least favorite of his films so far.Last film viewed: The Divorcée (1930). Last film chronologically: The Big House (1930). Next film viewed: The Criminal Code (1930). Next film chronologically: Animal Crackers (1930).

elisedfr Monte Carlo fail to attain the rate of other Lubistch musicals like "Love Parade" or "One hour with you".But this is anyway a very cute,funny and surprising movie who contains some great sequences and some holes.A sort of musical "Bluebeard's eight wife".Jeanette Mac Donald gives one exhilarating performance.She's used to play the noble lady charming and snob and she excels at it.Just watch the scene where she breaks her hair and shut,while crying:"Here!I'm going to the Opera and i'll say to everyone you dressed my hair!" I couldn't stop laughing.About Jack Buchanan-well,he's not Maurice Chevalier to say the least.He doesn't seem very comfortable with his part.In some scenes (mainly the one where the count and his friends laugh endlessly) he is mechanical and unnatural.He drift from cynic to genuine lover in a very disturbing way. Anyway,it must be said that in certain sequences he's not bad at all.I liked the way he shook his head when Jeanette calls him Rudolph and at the end,when he affect indifference each time the countess looks at him then smile irrepressibly. The supporting cast is excellent but some characters (as the fiancé's father disappear in the middle of the movie and left a strange impression.The songs are quite good -except the funny but forgettable little number about hairdresser- Jeanette Mac Donald sings the legendary,Lubitsch favorite song "Beyond the blue horizon" and there is a beautiful duo between the two leads "Always in all ways".At a certain moment of the song,you feel an almost palpable atmosphere of joy.Verdict: "Not bad,not bad at all".Forgive the script's incoherences and Buchanan's weaknesses and enjoy.