Let's Fall in Love
                
Director: David Burton
Year: 1933
Rating: 6.0
My Fair Swede. This was Ann Sothern's first leading role and she steals every scene she is in with her co-star Edmund Lowe. Not that stealing scenes from Lowe was all that difficult but Sothern is a gem in this film - singing in Swedish and giving the camera some great starry-eyed in love close-ups. Her background was in singing but unfortunately most of her roles didn't give her the opportunity. In a few of the Maisie films, she gets a chance to sing but not often enough. This runs 66-minutes and is a decent little romance with a couple of musical interludes - the title song being the best known of them. It also pokes some good fun at Hollywood.



Lowe is a director trying to make a film about a Swedish woman falling in love with an American. But his Swedish star (Tala Birell - who is Romanian but brought over to be another Garbo) is very difficult, wants to be alone and quits to go back to Sweden - clearly a dig at the real Garbo. The owner of the studio (Gregory Ratoff, who was a director in his own right) wants to close the picture down or just get an American actress, but Lowe insists on a real Swede. The big search is on. Every Swedish bakery and Swedish massage place are looked into for a potential star.



Then he comes across Sothern at a circus where she is the tout to get men to throw baseballs in order to knock two babes into the water. He sees what he wants in her, but she isn't Swedish but has a good ear for accents. Simple solution to his problem - put her with a Swedish family - of course John Qualen plays the father - and faster than most of us can put on our pants, she is fluent in Swedish. She is presented as Sigrid Lund to the world. Back in those days making up totally false lives for their actors was not unusual - Theda Bara born in in Cincinnati was supposedly Egyptian. Of course, complications lay ahead. Lowe's girlfriend's friend is played by Betty Furness. The name jumped out at me though probably means nothing to anyone under 40. Later in life after she retired, she became one of the leading voices in consumer protection and was well-known in New York for her work. A cute film and Sothern was on her way.