Opinion
Devil-May-Care is significant as the first MGM operetta, a sub-gene in which the studio achieved considerable success during the thirties, largely owing to the success of the Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy partnership.
Ramon Novarro had been a popular action star in silent films, following his star-making appearance in Ben-Hur (1925). But he had trained as a singer and always insisted that performing opera had been his great ambition. He was certainly a gifted tenor, and a much better actor than Eddy, both of which attributes he demonstrates in Devil-May-Care.
The film is loosely based on The Ladies’ Battle, a three-act comedy by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé, written in 1851. Its opening section is entirely new, the play beginning at the point at which the hero is disguised as a servant and falling in love with Léonie. As its title suggests, the play has a greater focus on the two female characters, whereas Armand is the subject of Devil-May-Care, as befits Novarro’s status as a major star.
Barrios has drawn attention to the terrible inadequacy of most of the operettas produced in 1929-31, starting with Fox’s The Desert Song (1929). But he singles out Devil-May-Care as being “slickly produced,” both an artistic and financial success. This is largely attributable to Novarro’s personality and a score by Herbert Stothard and Clifford Grey that achieves no great heights but serves its purpose very well. This was Stothart’s first major project, early on in his career at Metro, and he is partnered well with Grey.
There is also a solid performance by John Miljan as DeGrignon, the villain of the piece.
Devil-May-Care has one of the interpolated two-strip Technicolor sequences that were ubiquitous at the time. It serves no purpose other than to slow down the film when it should have been building to its climax.
Leaving that aside, Devil-May-Care is a musical still capable of being enjoyed, which is more than can be said for many of its contemporaries.
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