The best of the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald musicals, and to my mind the best musical film ever. The pair were at their peak - they were still young, looked beautiful, and their singing was superb. The story was strong, and they were backed by a fine supporting cast, led by John Barrymore as the possessive and jealous Nazaroff. It's the standard engaged girl meets boy she loves more but feels obligated to keep her promise to marry her teacher/manager, loses boy, finds boy - well, it's a weepy. It's also amusing, and has lots of wonderful singing, including a montage of opera sequences for Jeanette MacDonald and a superb shadow opera, Czaritza, adapted from Tschaikovsky's 5th Symphony. Even my husband, who can't stand Eddy and MacDonald, sits and watches this one. I must have seen it about fifty times, but I never, ever tire of it.
