Pop Culture 101 - THE MERRY WIDOW

Initial critical reaction to The Merry Widow put Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn in search of an operetta of his own. He signed Grace Moore after MGM dropped her for weighing too much, put her on a diet (some suggested that he even put her in his bed, too) and starred her in One Night of Love (1934). The film ended up a bigger hit than The Merry Widow, even bringing Moore an Oscar® nomination.

Moore's success and MGM's faith in Jeanette MacDonald inspired a new spate of American operettas starting with Naughty Marietta (1935), the first film to team MacDonald with her most popular co-star, Nelson Eddy. MacDonald and Eddy would become stars in decidedly more sentimental offerings that played better in small town America.

Director Ernst Lubitsch's sophisticated treatment of the battle of the sexes and screen romance were a tremendous influence on other directors. Both Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder -- writer-directors from Lubitsch's home studio, Paramount -- would credit him as an inspiration. Even international filmmakers tried to emulate him, most notably Jean Renoir in La Regle de Jeu (1939) and Ingmar Bergman with Smiles of a Summer Night (1955).

MGM made yet another version of The Merry Widow in 1952, with Fernando Lamas as Danilo and a non-singing Lana Turner as the widow. The film did well at the box office but poorly with critics. It won Oscar® nominations for Art Direction and Costume Design. To avoid confusion with the remake, the 1934 version was re-titled The Lady Dances for television showings.

The Merry Widow was accepted into the operatic repertoire in 1978, when the New York City Opera mounted a new production starring Beverly Sills and Alan Titus. Although opera stars had appeared in the show prior to that, those productions had been confined to theatres doing musical comedy.

Other versions included a German film in 1962, a television broadcast of the Sills production and an Australian video starring Peter Martins and Patricia McBride, with a guest appearance by Joan Sutherland.

by Frank Miller