The Merry Widow (1952)

Director: Curtis Bernhardt

Cast: Lana Turner, Fernando Lamas, Una Merkel

Synopsis: Operating under royal orders, a count must woo a young and wealthy widow in order to save a kingdom from bankruptcy.

The Merry Widow is an inoffensive movie that doesn’t really strike one as a musical; there aren’t that many songs in it, and those it does contain aren’t particularly memorable. Lana Turner (Cass Timberlane) and Fernando Lamas (The Lost World) make an extremely good-looking couple, although Turner – always the brash blonde – looks out-of-place in the confines of high-class hotels and mythical European palaces. The colour is sometimes a little too much: garish reds and pinks (especially in the outlandish hotel foyer) often saturate the screen and distract the viewer’s attention from the actors. Turner had slashed her wrist in a failed suicide attempt the previous year, and the bracelet she wears throughout this movie was to disguise the scar. The suicide attempt was over her failed marriage to Bob Topping, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying a brief fling with Lamas during the making of The Merry Widow. It’s not a great MGM musical by any means, but watchable if you’re in the mood for some undemanding fare.

(Reviewed 21st February 2002)