The musical arrangement is great stuff, putting her on the higher end of the keyboard which allows her interjections to Colbert’s jazzy delight to seem fragile but determined.
She goes from worry to doubt to wonder to finally finding her own voice in the course of a few refrains.
#THE SMILING LIEUTENANT 1931 MOVIE MOVIE#
Colbert’s Franzi, the free spirit who spent the movie knowing that she gives her heart too freely, is finally the person to break the wall between Anna and the reality of the modern free spirited woman.Īnd I love Hopkins’ performance in that song. Even if this movie would flunk the Bechdel test, it’s still a lively scene of womanly bonding. Watch that video if you haven’t, even if you’ve seen it before and haven’t in a while. She teaches Anna the secret to modernity via the film’s most catchy– and eye catching– musical number: After a couple of slaps and a good cry, Franzi realizes that she can’t keep denying the reality that Niki is really no longer hers. She confronts her, but both find that the situation has made them both a bit delicate. How do you resolve this three way?Īfter Anna discovers that Niki is ‘stepping out’ (and shortly thereafter learns what ‘stepping out’ means), she pulls some strings and tricks Franzi into coming to her bedroom.
#THE SMILING LIEUTENANT 1931 MOVIE HOW TO#
In secret, Niki continues his tryst with Franzi while Anna remains puzzled as how to keep her attractive husband home at night. Since turning her down means less than pleasant consequences, he acquiesces to a marriage, but not the wedding bed. If he does marry her, it’s to a wife and country to whom the Magna Carta may be a little too hip and edgy for their tastes. If he doesn’t marry Anna, he’ll disgrace Austria and go to prison. Niki becomes trapped in a Catch-22, or, to use a more modern parlance, a Kobayashi Maru scenario. And, you know, go even a bit further than that. Niki is modernity, something Anna can barely understand, but is eager to embrace. Upon meeting a man of the world– or at least a man who knows what winking means– Anna’s smitten. When Anna sees Niki’s wink, she takes offense until he explains to her what a wink means. Anna’s problem is that she’s like Flausentherm, stuck 700 years ago sexually and socially. We never see nor hear the story of her mother, but she’s apparently been doted on by King Adolf and a court filled with well-meaning but old-fashioned ladies. He will be too busy opening a cattle show.Īnna is a direct corollary of these Flausentherm frustrations. To further complicate their inferiority complex, the King of Austria sent his regrets to his cousin King Adolf that he cannot meet them at the train station for their arrival in Vienna. For Flausenthurm it’s the size that matters King Adolf (George Barbier) complains that Austria and Flausentherm were once the same size, it’s only been in the last 700 years that Austria outpaced them. Flausenthurm is a place like the Freedonia, Klopstokia or The Duchy of Grand Fenwick, where you can tell that something about the country has turned its citizens a few degrees away from normal. They make wonderful music together, but tragedy strikes one day when Niki is winking at Franzi– because between them is Anna, the princess of the made-up kingdom of Flausenthurm. He’s a sexual hummingbird until he meets Franzi, a violinist in a beer hall orchestra called “The Viennese Swallows.” (Insert your own 1930s oral sex joke here.) When he’s not in formation, though, Niki prefers spending his time on his back. Niki’s army is a standing army, insomuch as there’s no war so they stand around and do nothing. He’s played by Maurice Chevalier, so it’s a lot of winking, singing, and suggestive ‘ooh la las’. Niki is a lieutenant in the Austrian army. What was it that so enraged her? Let me explain the plot first and then we’ll hit that. From the woman who fawned over Trouble in Paradise and One Hour with You, she could hardly contain her anger at the film’s story. I mention this because my wife was livid after the end of The Smiling Lieutenant. I’ve seen my wife legitimately angry in possibly three, maybe four times in the five years we’ve been together.
She is insanely cheerful, with an upbeat attitude that often throws people off. But when we want to do something about it, we wink.”
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