It took nine years to get I Married an Angel (1942) to the screen, with a detour via Broadway to prove the material commercially viable. But after all that effort, it turned out to be a rare musical flop for MGM. And although it contains some charming musical sequences, particularly an out-of-character jitterbug for star Jeanette MacDonald, it's now largely remembered as the picture that ended her on-screen romance with Nelson Eddy.

Songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart first worked on the script, with playwright Moss Hart, in 1933. Even then, the story was hardly new. It was an adaptation of a Hungarian play by Vassary Janos that had been a success in Europe. From the start, they envisioned it as a vehicle for Jeanette MacDonald, who had just triumphed on-screen as the star of their Love Me Tonight (1932). They pitched the project to MGM, where MacDonald had just signed a long-term contract, but were turned down by studio head Louis B. Mayer. Not only did he dislike the story's fantasy element (a devil-may-care banker saves his family business by marrying the only woman good enough for him, an angel), but the censorship problems in a story about an angel giving up her wings to wed and bed a mortal seemed insurmountable.

Not ready to give up on the project, Rodgers and Hart finally got the story packaged for Broadway, where it scored a big hit in 1938. Singing stars Dennis King and Vivienne Segal headlined the cast, with prima ballerina Vera Zorina in a non-singing role as the angel. Helping greatly was a stylish production from director Joshua Logan and legendary choreographer George Balanchine. With a Broadway success and several songs, including the title number and "Spring Is Here," climbing the charts, Mayer decided that maybe it could work as a film after all.

MGM picked up the rights in 1938, planned to star MacDonald, then spent four years re-writing the script to get it past the Production Code Administration, Hollywood's self-censorship board. Even making the marriage to the angel a dream didn't seem to be enough. After the film had gone into production, they had to cut scenes suggesting that the angel had actually borne children by her lawfully wedded husband. Nonetheless, with the scripting problems finally solved, they put the film into production with Nelson Eddy, who had already teamed with MacDonald in seven other films.

But though Eddy and MacDonald still had a devoted following, it had decreased over the years. Their previous two films -- Bitter Sweet (1940), from Noel Coward's operetta, and New Moon (also 1940), with music by Sigmund Romberg -- had suffered from diminishing box office returns. Moreover, Eddy was really more at home with light classics and seemed lost in I Married an Angel's comic plot and more contemporary musical style. Nor did it help that the studio assigned the project to W.S. Van Dyke, a director more noted for working quickly than any discernible style.

The script that had already been compromised by the censors became even more truncated as numbers were cut and sequences re-thought. After MacDonald tested for early scenes as Eddy's secretary in dowdy costumes and make-up, she inexplicably filmed the scenes with a more glamorous appearance that fit neither her character nor the plot. And as Hollywood frequently did with Broadway musicals, they not only cleaned up the score for I Married an Angel, but added other numbers, including a few opera excerpts for the singing team's fans. Since Rodgers and Hart had other commitments at the time, two other songwriters, Bob Wright and Chet Forrest, were assigned to the adaptation. They were so appalled at being forced to desecrate the score, they quit MGM and fled to Broadway, where they scored solid hits turning the music of classical composers Edward Grieg and Alexandr Borodin into the scores of Song of Norway and Kismet, respectively. Needless to say, I Married an Angel was trounced by the critics and ignored by fans. MacDonald and Eddy would only re-team for some radio appearances and an album of their greatest hits, made in the '60s.

Yet for all its reputation as a disaster, I Married an Angel has its strengths. Eddy may be outmatched by the score, but MacDonald is at her best trilling through the bowdlerized version of "A Twinkle in Your Eye" and duetting with Eddy on "Spring Is Here." As Eddy's ex-mistress (his sister in the play; one case in which Hollywood made the original naughtier), Binnie Barnes steals just about every scene she's in. And her jitterbug with MacDonald after telling the angel how to win a man on Earth is still the film's highlight.

Producer: Hunt Stromberg
Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Screenplay: Anita Loos
Based on the Musical by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and the Play by Vassary Janos
Cinematography: Ray June
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons
Music: Herbert Stothart
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald (Anna Zador/Brigitta), Nelson Eddy (Count Willie Pilaffi), Edward Everett Horton (Peter), Binnie Barnes (Peggy Canery), Reginald Owen (Whiskers Rosbart), Douglass Dumbrille (Baron Szigethy), Mona Maris (Marika), Janis Carter (Sufi Sampo), Leonid Kinskey (Professor Zinski), Anne Jeffreys (Polly).
BW-85m. Closed captioning.

by Frank Miller