For many years, 1931’s The Smiling Lieutenant was considered a lost film. There is a longstanding legal dispute between it and the silent version that kept it out of circulation for decades. Fortunately for classic cinema lovers, a print was discovered in the 1990s in Denmark. Technical limitations, though, led to “an inevitable letdown” when the film was viewed for the first time in many years. Still, the discovery of a lost film after so many years brings with it a renewed hope that other famously lost films will eventually resurface. Maybe someday a complete copy of The Patriot will be found in someone’s attic in Denmark, and the Best Picture nominated films will be complete again.
The Smiling Lieutenant is a pre-code film, which is always fun to delve into. Pre-code films got away with things that movies a decade later couldn’t even hint at. This film, nearly a hundred years old at this point, is filled with sexual innuendo, marital affairs, and double entendres so blatant they are impossible to miss. It’s also a musical, although the songs are sporadic and, with the possible exception of the final number, Jazz Up Your Lingerie, none are the type you would listen to outside of the film. The songs aren’t exactly toe-tapping, but the performers, Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert, deliver them with such energy and glee that it is impossible to see and hear them without a smile on your own face.
The story is along the lines of a typical comedy of errors, but the effect of the misunderstanding is the one part of the film that isn’t being played for laughs. It takes place in Vienna, and Lieutenant Nikolaus “Niki” von Preyn (Maurice Chevalier) is invited by a fellow soldier to help him make contact with a local violinist and leader of an all-female orchestra. This friend, a married man, has fallen for this young woman, Franzi (Cludette Colbert), because she reminds him of his wife when she was twenty years younger. When Franzi is introduced to the two men, though, Niki is enamored with her, himself, and the two go off together, quickly falling in love.
Meanwhile, there is a visiting royal family of Flausenthurm. King Adolf XV (George Barbier) and his daughter Anna (Miriam Hopkins) are frustrated with the perceived slights they have received from the local Vienna government. Niki, while standing in formation at a parade for the visiting King, sees Franzi across the street and smiles, winking at her. This is seen by Anna, who, mistaking the gesture as being aimed at her, is offended and demands Niki be punished. He is brought before the King and his daughter and, realizing he may be executed for the unintended gesture, spins it off as him being overwhelmed by the beauty of Princess Anna to the point of forgetting his place. While this response saves his life, it also has an unintended effect on her. Anna has been charmed by Niki and wants to marry him. Niki, unable to get himself out of this mess without risking his life, is forced into this marriage, all the while still being in love with Franzi.
The circumstances that lead up to Niki being married to Anna are farcical, punctuated by the occasional musical number. Maurice Chevalier seems well suited to this, spending much of the first part of this film living up to the title. His facial ticks and expressions are sufficiently exaggerated almost to the point of bafoonery. His initial savoir-faire attitude not only allows him to swoop in and steal Franzi from his lusty soldier friend but also sweet-talk her into a maybe when he casually suggests she spend the night with him shortly after their first evening together. She offers to meet him for dinner the following night, and he casually suggests breakfast instead, hinting at something unsubtly. Her response is equally forward. She counters with afternoon tea, then dinner, and afterwards, perhaps breakfast. This was some steamy dialogue in the 1930s.
Maurice and Claudette are perfectly cast for each other. Some of the best scenes in this entire picture are between them. Even as her heart is being torn out by the business with Princess Anna, she is desperately in love with him, and it is played perfectly by Claudette. She was a tremendous talent that rightfully deserved her spot amongst the A-list actresses of her day. Maurice, on the other hand, is being entirely too goofy a lot of the time. However, when the situation turns a bit more dour, he sobers up quickly. His character has gotten himself in a nearly impossible situation, though, and we feel sorry for him. He loves one woman and is forced to marry another one. As sympathetic as I am towards his predicament, I cannot go along with his actions once he is reunited with Franzi. As a married man, it is stated that he has refused to consummate his marriage with Anna, and instead, he steps out on her and back to Franzi. Considering he married Anna to prevent being executed for supposedly winking at her at the parade, he doesn’t seem too concerned about the possibility of being executed for being unfaithful to her.
The resolution to this predicament is troublesome, too. I remember people getting all in an uproar over Sandy’s transformation in Grease, changing everything about herself to please Danny. The same thing is happening here. Anna is presented as frumpy and unattractive, something that Miriam Hopkins is definitely not. The way this plays out makes the unfortunate statement that Niki values physical beauty over anything else. Franzi, wishing to help Niki out and willing to sacrifice her own happiness for him, schools Anna in how to make herself attractive to him. This is where we get the aforementioned song Jazz up Your Lingerie. After a complete makeover, Anna becomes so sexy that Niki is able to rapidly get over his love for Franzi and hop into bed with Anna instead. This scene is surface-level funny but is presenting a troubling message about love and marriage.
As an Oscar-nominated film, this one is passable. It’s not awful by any means. But it is fleeting and has some troubling messages about self-worth and the nature of romance. Maurice Chevalier is good when he is playing up the goofiness of his character, but when he feels he no longer has something to smile about, he just becomes unlikable. Miriam Hopkins spends too much of the movie being unhappy and unpleasant. Her best scene is the sole one she shares with Claudette Colbert, where she comes in angry, and the two end up sobbing comically over their lots in life. This whole scene, as cliché as some of it is, is the best one in the entire film, and it comes so late in the film that it’s almost too little, too late. And while the makeover of Anna and Niki’s response to it is troublesome, it does end on that wonderfully sexy scene where she keeps holding up the checkers board to entice him, and he eventually takes it from her hands and tosses it onto the bed. The film should have ended here. Unfortunately, the filmmakers had to add in a stinger where Niki addresses the audience, leaving on a joke but destroying the steamy atmosphere of the previous scene.
Academy Award Nomination:
Outstanding Production: Ernst Lubitsch
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Release Date: August 1, 1931
Running Time: 89 Minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, and Miriam Hopkins
Directed By: Ernst Lubitsch
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