Poor Queen Louise when she is awakened by her attendants she has been dreaming of love but must face another day in the Kingdom of Sylvania without a husband. When an errant military adjutant is recalled from Paris to face her censure she falls for his charms and he for hers, and they marry. But the Queen's new husband is unhappy in the role of obedient consort. Conflict arises but is eventually resolved, as we know it will be in operetta land.
This early Lubitsch musical rates about the same as MONTE CARLO made a year later. The highlight here is the performance of Maurice Chevalier as the consort, a sort of pre-Cary Grant Cary Grant, Gallic style. He has the same effortless magnetism and charm and a certain physical resemblance. Jeanette MacDonald is as good here as in MONTE CARLO, handling songs and dialogue with equal aplomb and looking gorgeous in her filmy gowns. As is usual with Lubitsch, there is a superior supporting cast, here including the formidable Lupino Lane as Chevalier's valet, a sassy and brassy Lillian Roth as Lane's love interest and Edgar Norton as the "Master of Ceremonies," the personification of royal lackey. Another Lubitsch hallmark, the measured depiction of ritualistic daily activities, gets much display in the context of the protocols of a royal palace. The songs by Victor Schertzinger and Clifford Grey are only passable and the primitive sound recording doesn't help in getting them across but the tone of the whole enterprise is so frothy and pleasant that one doesn't mind not hearing all of the lyrics.
When you compare this film to other musicals from the dawn of the sound era like Broadway MELODY the difference is glaring. Lubitsch's camera is liberated and fluid and we get an assortment of physical approaches to song and dance numbers which themselves vary in style from pompous operetta-military to musical hall slapstick to Gilbert-and- Sullivanesque call-and-repeat choral to intimate romantic duets. There is a hint of LOVE ME TONIGHT in some of the ensemble work, particularly with the palace staff. And the script is studded with witty observations and clever comic constructions, some via dialogue, some through pure visuals. THE LOVE PARADE illustrates that in 1929 Rouben Mamoulian (APPLAUSE) was not alone among film directors in recognizing the value of sound as an artistic element and in refusing to subordinate the freedom of the camera to the dictates of miking.
