The Merry Widow (1934 film)

The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
	theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ernst Lubitsch
Written by	Libretto:; Victor Léon; Leo Stein; Screenplay:; Ernest Vajda; Samson Raphaelson; Marcel Achard; (French version)
Produced by	Irving Thalberg; Ernst Lubitsch
Starring	Maurice Chevalier; Jeanette MacDonald
Cinematography	Oliver T. Marsh
Edited by	Frances Marsh (English); Adrienne Fazan (French)
Music by	Franz Lehár
Production; company	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	October 11, 1934;
Running time	99 minutes
Country	United States
Languages	English; French; (separate versions)
Budget	$1,605,000
Box office	$2.8 million (worldwide rentals)

The Merry Widow is a 1934 film adaptation of the operetta of the same name by Franz Lehár. It was directed and produced by Ernst Lubitsch and starred Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. A French-language version was produced at the same time and released in France the same year as La Veuve joyeuse.

Plot

Playboy Captain Danilo (Maurice Chevalier) is ordered by King Achmet of Marshovia (George Barbier) to court and marry Madame Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald), a rich widow who owns a large portion of the kingdom.^[2]

Cast

English

Maurice Chevalier as Captain Danilo
Jeanette MacDonald as Madame Sonia / Fifi
Edward Everett Horton as Ambassador Popoff
Una Merkel as Queen Dolores
George Barbier as King Achmet
Minna Gombell as Marcelle
Ruth Channing as Lulu
Sterling Holloway as Mischka
Donald Meek as Valet
Herman Bing as Zizipoff
Jason Robards Sr. as Arresting Officer (uncredited)
Akim Tamiroff as Maxim's Manager (uncredited)

French

Maurice Chevalier as Prince Danilo
Jeanette MacDonald as Missia
Marcel Vallée as L'ambassadeur
Danièle Parola as La reine
André Berley as Le roi
Fifi D'Orsay as Marcelle
Pauline Garon as Lola
George Davis as L'ordonnance
Jean Perry as Le valet
Akim Tamiroff as Turk

Awards and honors

Cedric Gibbons and Fredric Hope won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.^[3]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

2006: AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – Nominated^[4]

Reception

The film earned $861,000 in the US and $1,747,000 overseas for a total rental of $2,608,000.^[1] It earned a further $151,000 on re-release in 1949-1950 to almost break even.^[1]

References

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
^ Green, Stanley (1999) Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN 0-634-00765-3 page 34
^ "The Merry Widow". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-07.
^ "AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-13.

External links

The Merry Widow at IMDb
The Merry Widow at the TCM Movie Database
The Merry Widow at AllMovie
La veuve joyeuse at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
La Veuve joyeuse at IMDb
La Veuve joueuse at the TCM Movie Database

This article about a romantic musical film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[Mannix-1] The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.

[2] Green, Stanley (1999) Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN 0-634-00765-3 page 34

[NY_Times-3] "The Merry Widow". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-07.

[4] "AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-13.

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[4]

v t e Irving Thalberg
Producer	The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) Merry-Go-Round (1923) His Hour (1924) He Who Gets Slapped (1924) The Unholy Three (1925) The Merry Widow (1925) The Tower of Lies (1925) The Big Parade (1925) Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) Torrent (1926) La Bohème (1926) Brown of Harvard (1926) The Road to Mandalay (1926) The Temptress (1926) Valencia (1926) Flesh and the Devil (1926) Twelve Miles Out (1927) The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) London After Midnight (1927) The Crowd (1928) Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928) White Shadows in the South Seas (1928) Show People (1928) West of Zanzibar (1928) The Broadway Melody (1929) The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929) Voice of the City (1929) Where East Is East (1929) The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929) The Hollywood Revue (1929) Hallelujah (1929) His Glorious Night (1929) The Kiss (1929) Anna Christie (1930) Redemption (1930) The Divorcee (1930) The Rogue Song (1930) The Big House (1930) The Unholy Three (1930) Let Us Be Gay (1930) Billy the Kid (1930) Way for a Sailor (1930) A Lady's Morals (1930) Inspiration (1931) Trader Horn (1931) The Secret Six (1931) A Free Soul (1931) Just a Gigolo (1931) The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) The Guardsman (1931) The Champ (1931) Possessed (1931) Private Lives (1931) Mata Hari (1931) Freaks (1932) Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) Grand Hotel (1932) Letty Lynton (1932) As You Desire Me (1932) Red-Headed Woman (1932) Smilin' Through (1932) Red Dust (1932) Rasputin and the Empress (1932) Strange Interlude (1932) Tugboat Annie (1933) Bombshell (1933) Eskimo (1933) Riptide (1934) The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) The Merry Widow (1934) What Every Woman Knows (1934) No More Ladies (1935) China Seas (1935) Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) A Night at the Opera (1935) Riffraff (1936) Romeo and Juliet (1936) Camille (1936) Maytime (1937) A Day at the Races (1937) Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937) The Good Earth (1937) Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer	The Trap (1922)
People	Norma Shearer (wife) Irving Thalberg Jr. (son)
Related	The Love of the Last Tycoon

v t e Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow (1905)
Films	The Merry Widow (1918 silent Hungarian) The Merry Widow (1925 silent) The Merry Widow (1934) The Merry Widow (1952) The Merry Widow (1962 German)
Other	The Merry Widow (ballet) The Merry Widow discography