The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
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The Smiling Lieutenant Movie Review
The Smiling Lieutenant is a 1931 musical romantic comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert and Miriam Hopkins. It’s a fun, but flawed flick.
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“Girls who start with breakfast don’t usually stay for supper“
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First and foremost, let’s negatively compare this movie unfortunately to other Lubitsch productions of the similar period and style. ‘One Hour with You’ was nominated for Best Picture the same year and it’s a much better film both in story and in suggestive humor. Also, ‘The Love Parade’ is so much better as a tale of imaginary kingdoms and intrigue. This movie is unoriginal as it’s so much influenced by that previous, better crafted flick.
That’s not to say that I disliked The Smiling Lieutenant. Not a chance. I really enjoyed the flick, but I just thought it was solid, rarely truly great or memorable. The plot is fine for what it is, some plot points and scenes are actually quite memorable and the humor is solid with some quite charming, amusing moments to be found. But the movie is very uneven in quality as it jumps from one intriguing, amusing sequence to a rather dull, forgettable one for the majority of its runtime.
Jeanette MacDonald’s departure is definitely felt, I have to say, as Maurice Chevalier is better when he’s with her. He’s still fine here, but he was better in his previous movies. Colbert and Hopkins are both reliably terrific as both are great talents, but they just did not fit with this style of film and the actor himself. I also found their triangle uninteresting, though I have to commend on the relationship between the two women as those later scenes absolutely stole the show.
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The Smiling Lieutenant is well directed by Lubitsch, but it’s far from his best efforts. It thus did not deserve its Best Picture nomination at all and it’s weird that it only got that one nom and nothing else. It’s a well shot movie, technically very well made, some of the dialogue is playful and intriguing and the movie can be a lot of fun, but it can also be quite slow and tedious owing to problematic pacing and its soundtrack is very weak as all of the songs feature just a couple of repeated notes and offering nothing original.
The Smiling Lieutenant is a solid, but very disappointing Lubitsch flick that’s far from his best efforts. All of the actors did a great job, but Colbert and Hopkins do not fit as well with Chevalier as Jeanette MacDonald does. The film has its quite intriguing, fun and funny sequences, but it also has some forgettable scenes, a problematic pace and a weak soundtrack. It’s another charming film from the director, but an unoriginal, very flawed one.
