The Merry Widow (1934 film)

1934 film by Ernst Lubitsch

October 11, 1934 (1934-10-11)

Running time

99 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguagesEnglish
French
(separate versions)Budget$1,605,000^[1]Box office$2.8 million (worldwide rentals)^[1]

The Merry Widow is a 1934 film adaptation of the 1905 operetta of the same name by Franz Lehár. The film was directed and produced by Ernst Lubitsch starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald with a supporting cast featuring Edward Everett Horton, Una Merkel, Sterling Holloway, Donald Meek, Jason Robards Sr. and Akim Tamiroff. A French-language version was produced at the same time and released in France the same year as La Veuve joyeuse with some but not all of the same cast (Chevalier, MacDonald, and Tamiroff appear in both versions). Lorenz Hart and Gus Kahn wrote new English lyrics for some Lehar songs under the musical direction of Herbert Stothart.

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 was nominated for the American Film Institute's 2006 list AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals.^[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". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-10-17. Retrieved 2008-12-07.
^ "AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-13.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Merry Widow (1934 film).

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

Films directed by Ernst Lubitsch

Feature films

Shoe Palace Pinkus (1916)
When Four Do the Same (1917)
Die Augen der Mumie Ma (1918)
Ich Möchte Kein Mann Sein (1918)
The Toboggan Cavalier (1918)
The Ballet Girl (1918)
Carmen (1918)
The Rosentopf Case (1918)
Intoxication (1919)
The Doll (1919)
The Swabian Maiden (1919)
My Wife, the Movie Star (1919)
The Oyster Princess (1919)
Meyer from Berlin (1919)
Madame DuBarry (1919)
Romeo and Juliet in the Snow (1920)
Sumurun (1920)
Kohlhiesel's Daughters (1920)
Anna Boleyn (1920)
The Wildcat (1921)
The Loves of Pharaoh (1922)
The Flame (1923)
Rosita (1923)
The Marriage Circle (1924)
Three Women (1924)
Forbidden Paradise (1924)
Kiss Me Again (1925)
Lady Windermere's Fan (1925)
So This Is Paris (1926)
The Honeymoon Express (1926)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
The Patriot (1928)
Eternal Love (1929)
The Love Parade (1929)
Monte Carlo (1930)
Paramount on Parade (co-director) (1930)
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
Broken Lullaby (1932)
One Hour with You (1932)
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Design for Living (1933)
The Merry Widow (1934)
Angel (1937)
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)
Ninotchka (1939)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
That Uncertain Feeling (1941)
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
A Royal Scandal (1945)
Cluny Brown (1946)
That Lady in Ermine (1948)

Short films

I Don't Want to Be a Man (1918)
The Housing Shortage (1920)
If I Had a Million (segment "The Clerk")

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

v t e Samson Raphaelson screenplays
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) Broken Lullaby (1932) One Hour with You (1932) Trouble In Paradise (1932) Caravan (1934) The Merry Widow (1934) Servants' Entrance (1934) The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937) Angel (1937) The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Suspicion (1941) Heaven Can Wait (1943) The Harvey Girls (1946) Ziegfeld Follies (1946) Green Dolphin Street (1947) That Lady in Ermine (1948) Main Street to Broadway (1953)

Samson Raphaelson screenplays