Updated November 26, 2025. Back in the early 1970s, I was fortunate enough to see, as a UCLA student, a complete nitrate print of this black-and-white movie with two-strip Technicolor finale intact. Paramount had just recently turned over their early library to the university. Since then, only the black-and-white version has been available, and in the re-edited, shorter version re-released in 1937 (likely to cash in on Jeanette’s then super-stardom) with 13 minutes chopped out.
Historical note: Jeanette MacDonald had only been in movies for one year but after this United Artists project hoped to start branching out as an independent producer. This was a novel and bold idea for a woman, particularly in 1930. The project seemed to have a lot going for it: Arthur Hammerstein (uncle of Oscar II) produced, Herbert Stothart wrote the story while his Rose Marie co-author Rudolf Friml wrote the score. Jeanette’s co-star John Garrick didn’t impress but baritone Robert Chisholm sang well. Comic actors included Joe E. Brown and Zasu Pitts. Why didn’t this film really come together? Because the original script was potentially decent but the direction so stagy, the acting hokey plus the sets looked cheap. The film’s pace was deadly slow and crippled by the novelty and restrictions of sound films – then only a year old. Jeanette was forced to drop (at least for the time being) her dream to play a more active role in movies than just acting. She considered she’d had two 1930 flops – both Technicolor – The Vagabond King and The Lottery Bride. She next moved to Fox to try her hand at straight acting – making 3 films with little or no singing – and when they didn’t pan out as she’d hoped she left Hollywood altogether and went to Europe where she triumphed with a concert tour. Afterwards she swallowed her pride and returned to Paramount in 1932 to recreate her original success with Ernst Lubitsch and Maurice Chevalier. In regards to billing she would still play second fiddle to Chevalier but at least her final two films for Paramount were big hits.
In the years since this post was written, the Technicolor sequence found online at YouTube in 2013 has been pulled down. If we find another link to watch it, we will update it here. As of 2025, the original, full-length version has not been released on DVD, only the shorter, black-and-white 1937 version. George Eastman House has a color print of the original and screened it in 2018.
