One Hour With You (1932)
How many times can I say "horny" in one review? We're all about to find out, together.
What a little thing like a wedding ring can do...
One Hour With You (1932) - watched 8/28/24
Director: Ernst Lubitsch, George Cukor
Writer: Samson Raphaelson
Starring: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin, Charles Ruggles
Available to watch on OK.ru
First Time Watch? Yes
🚨 Horny! Horny horny horny! 🚨
That’s truly the best way I can summarize the vibe of this movie—and the Ernst Lubitsch musicals that I’ve seen so far.1 These movies are horny in a way that I don’t think modern audiences are used to seeing. In a way, I’m not sure we ever fully recovered from the restrictions that the Hays Code imposed on the film industry. Sure, we’ve gotten to a place where we can have characters openly discussing sex, openly having sex, and seeking out other such horny endeavors. We saw a surge of erotic thrillers in the late 80s and early 90s. The raunchy comedy also ruled the 80s and made a comeback in the early 2000s. And prestige films from the New Hollywood era to today certainly haven’t shied away from putting sexual taboos on full display.
But that’s not the same as horny.
I know it feels like this newsletter has been nothing but “They don’t make ‘em like they used to” lately, but—it’s undeniable that they just don’t make ‘em like they used to! In a lot of ways, this is a blessing, but in some ways—such as when it comes to making lighthearted, breezy, horny romps—it feels like genuine loss. Maybe this is part of the collective trauma we’ve experienced in a post “Me Too” era, but it feels like we just don’t treat sexuality with any kind of levity in films these days.
It’s a tough line to toe, and I can understand why filmmakers wouldn’t necessarily want to “go there,” in this modern climate where knee jerk reactions are always the loudest and nuanced opinions are often drowned out. I also imagine that a lot of the rompier movies I’m seeking are often relegated to direct-to-streaming releases, with miniscule marketing budgets, which makes it all the more difficult to find in the sea of streaming slop.
But I crave the romps! I have an appetite for the oddball, borderline troubling horniness of Grease! The most recent release I can think of that scratched that itch for me was 2024’s Lisa Frankenstein, which does a decent job of capturing the horny energy of 80s comedies without the more problematic themes of that decade (looking at you, Revenge of the Nerds) but even so, I felt like that film could have gone further.
So it feels a little strange to be talking about a 90+ year old film as “refreshing” in that sense, but One Hour With You was surprisingly, delightfully, and yes, refreshingly horny. Sex is fun! Sex is silly! If there’s one thing I can give these Lubitsch musicals credit for, it’s that they have an innate understanding of how to play off the cheekiness and absurdity of being horny.
Unless you're well mated, this business of marriage is much overrated.
Successful Parisian doctor Andre (Maurice Chevalier) and his wife, Colette (Jeanette MacDonald) are butt-crazy in love. They’re a married couple so annoyingly in love that everyone else seems to be like, What’s wrong with those people?
Colette’s old friend, Mitzi (Genevieve Tobin) comes to visit—unlike Colette, Mitzi is unhappy in her marriage to a professor (Roland Young). Mitzi is a little rascal who doesn’t seem to understand Girl Code, as once she sees Andre she is immediately entranced by him and aggressively pursues him. The professor catches Mitzi linking up with Andre, to his delight—he’s looking for a reason to divorce her. But Andre, still very much in love with Colette, finds himself in a tight spot as he tries to figure out how to prove to Colette that nothing fishy is going on.
Mitzi goes to great lengths to try to get closer to Andre—she fakes an illness so that Andre will examine her, she messes with the place settings at a party held at Andre and Colette’s house. Meanwhile, Colette has her own dogged pursuer in Adolph (Charles Ruggles), a friend of Andre’s. Believing that Andre has been unfaithful, Colette gets Adolph to admit that they kissed, calling it even with Andre. And that seems to… work? For some reason? In the end, Andre and Colette remain married, happy, and, most importantly, horny.
Professor, speaking detectively, you're as good as divorced right now.
You’ll recall that the last Ernst Lubitsch musical I reviewed, The Love Parade, was not exactly my favorite. In fact, it pissed me off. So understandably, I wasn’t looking forward to One Hour With You. So I’m pleased to say that when it comes to this film, I didn’t hate it!
Not exactly a ringing endorsement, sure. But I did enjoy myself more, watching One Hour With You. I found the premise less frustrating, which in itself felt like an accomplishment. Maurice Chevalier’s whole schtick felt more charming this time around, despite the fact that his character doesn’t have the greatest moral fortitude. I had the thought to look up whether Maurice Chevalier and his characters had any part in inspiring the creation of Pepe Le Pew, since watching these movies gives me essentially the same feeling as watching those dang horny skunk cartoons. After doing the bare minimum amount of research,2 it seems Chevalier had nothing to do with Pepe Le Pew’s origins, which feels incorrect.
I think what made it more enjoyable for me is that the women in the story got to have more fun—they got to be cheeky and playful and, yes, horny. They had confidence, they had power, they were active rather than passive. It was a lot of fun watching Genevieve Tobin as Mitzi going out of her way to get into Andre’s pants. And Jeanette MacDonald was effervescent as ever, but also played the pain of her husband’s betrayal quite well. The range!
As far as what didn’t work, the music still didn’t hit me quite right—was Maurice Chevalier considered to be a good singer? Because if so, it doesn’t feel like they’re taking advantage of that ability. Most of the music was actually just rhythmic sing-talking, it kinda works for this, and it’s a step up from the music of The Love Parade, but there wasn’t anything terribly memorable about it for me. I also hated the fourth wall breaking, which is a general pet peeve of mine but here I found it to be especially distracting and odd. Chevalier pulls it off as best as anyone can, which for me isn’t saying too much.
And the ending? The ENDING. The flow of the ending felt so out of step compared to the snappy pace of the rest of the movie. It was a slog to get to the end—and sitting through it ultimately didn’t feel worth it. I find it so bizarre that in this era, seemingly, it was perfectly acceptable to respond to your partner cheating by cheating right back on them. After that, it’s all square and we can just get back to normal! No worries!! We saw a version of this with The Divorcee, and I found it equally strange and pretty debasing then, too. Just dump him, girl!
I want to see the movie where Colette leaves Andre and she meets Jerry from The Divorcee at a speakeasy and they become a pair of pre-Sex and the City besties, living it up in the big city—young, hot, and unabashedly horny.3 Now there’s a proper romp! Right after this I’m dusting off Final Draft to get this crossover script going.
Well, Doctor? We're even. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, an Adolph for a Mitzi. Fifty-fifty!
Quick Facts:
Nominated for 1 Academy Award, won none
Best Picture
2nd musical directed by Ernst Lubitsch & starring Maurice Chevalier & Jeanette MacDonald. The third and final of this pseudo-trilogy is 1934’s The Merry Widow.
A rare film of this era to show a married couple sharing the same bed
George Cukor was brought on to direct when Lubitsch’s previous film, 1932’s Broken Lullaby, went way over schedule. Lubitsch was brought back on to direct when Chevalier and Cukor had conflict on set. This resulted in Cukor and Lubitsch fighting for sole directing credit of the film, but they eventually settled on co-director credits. Men are literally the biggest babies.
Stray Observations:
I really needed this to be better than The Love Parade (and it was!)
These girlies love yapping…A+ yappers
Even though I’m not in love with this movie, I do wish the Academy would nominate more fun lil movies like this for Best Picture. Barbie was a good start back in this direction!
Oh yeah, Mitzi’s sick all right… sick in the PUSSY
The plot of this movie feels very much like the way a typical porno plot would unfold
The awkward laughter between Andre and Adolph is very funny, I could have watched that scene go on for way longer than it did
Mitzi is a real stinker!!
“Oh when are we going to be gay?” — brother I was asking myself the same thing!
Love how rich people throw parties for absolutely no reason. Must be nice!!!
I’m finding Maurice Chevalier more funny & charming this time around—he’s starting to grow on me, even if his characters consistently suck.
“I demand that you believe me!” lol sure, that’s how it works.
I love all of the doors!!! The sets in general, but especially the doors.
Took a bit long to end… and the ending was very, very stupid.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐½
Next Up: Shanghai Express (1932)
A grand total of… 2. Soon to be 3. But still.
I scanned the “Pepe Le Pew” Wikipedia page.
Total “horny” count for this review, not including this one: 15 hornies
"sick in the pussy” deserves to be slang and launched into the zeitgeist immediately! it has the sting of toxic ‘00s slang with the progressive zest of ‘20s queerdom.