Love Me Tonight plays at the American Film Institute


Nov. 18, 2003, midnight | By Allison Elvove | 20 years, 4 months ago

Montgomery College Takoma Park campus co-sponsors event


As part of the ongoing relationship between the Montgomery College Takoma Park campus and the American Film Institute Silver Theatre (AFI), Love Me Tonight, a 1932 romantic musical comedy, was shown last Wednesday, November 12.

The event marked the fourth of six movies to be presented in the Montgomery College Film Series that began on September 24 with Sunrise and concludes on December 3 with To Be or Not to Be. Perry Schwartz, the Artistic Director of the Black Box Theatre and Co-chair of the Department of Visual, Performing, and Communications Arts at Montgomery College, introduced a History Screenwriter and Senior Music Specialist from the Library of Congress. The two men discussed the history of Love Me Tonight, which only recently has become available to the public on Video and DVD.

Love Me Tonight's director, Rouben Mamoulian, has several movies to his credit, including Applause (1929), Jekyll and Hyde (1931), The Mark of Zorro (1940), Silk Stockings (1957) and Porgy and Bess (1959). Love Me Tonight was his fourth movie and the third for musical composer and lyricist Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart. Rogers and Hart's last musical together was The Merry Widow (1934), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, who also acted in Love Me Tonight.

After the film was shown at the AFI Silver, the audience asked questions and shared comments. One topic discussed in depth was that romantic musical comedies were negatively affected by the Production Code, a list of standards enforced by Hollywood regarding the amount of sexuality permitted in films. A scene was cut from Love Me Tonight in which Countess Valentine (Myrna Loy) sings a verse of the song, Mimi, while wearing lingerie with her midriff showing.

The next movie of the Montgomery College Film Series is The Long Riders, which will be showing this Wednesday, November 19 at 6:30 p.m. For ticket prices, go here, and click on The Long Riders.

Look for more information to come on Silver Chips Online about the Montgomery College Takoma Park campus' programs, events, and college majors.



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Allison Elvove. Allison Elvove was a Co-Editor-in-Chief of Silver Chips Online during the 2004-2005 school year. She wrote more than 70 articles while on the staff and supervised 40 student journalists, editing articles on a daily basis. During her time as editor, Silver Chips Online won the … More »

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