By Steven Suskin
03 Dec 2007

Along with "Be Yourself!," Kino has released a second 1930 musical from producer Joseph M. Schenck. The Lottery Bride is not a Broadway transplant, but it might as well be. Arthur Hammerstein — uncle to Oscar 2d — was one of the kings of Broadway operetta, with The Firefly, Wildflower, Rose-Marie and Song of the Flame to his credit.

When hard times hit in 1929, bankruptcy beckoned. Hammerstein had the bad luck to build an out-of-the-way theatre (within a large office building) at the very worst moment. In his attempts to salvage the Hammerstein — now the Ed Sullivan — he lost everything. One of the straws he grasped at was a Hollywood contract. The Lottery Bride was billed, in big letters, as "An Arthur Hammerstein Operetta." And so it was. Rudolf Friml, operetta's greatest composer, wrote the score. Oscar, who provided book and lyrics for many of his uncle's operettas, was at the moment contracted with Sigmund Romberg by Warner Bros. Thus, the lyric assignment went to J. Keirn Brennan, who was simultaneously writing the Arthur Hammerstein-Rudolf Friml stage operetta Luana. This Hawaiian opus opened five weeks before the release of "The Lottery Bride," closing after two weeks and dealing the final blow to Arthur's fortunes.

Friml wrote a handful of song hits in the mid-to-late 1920s for Rose-Marie, The Vagabond King and The Three Musketeers. But there's nothing worth hearing in "The Lottery Bride," or Luana for that matter. The film, which stars Jeanette McDonald, is almost humorously bad. Even so, it is highly instructive as it is — presumably — constructed like a Hammerstein operetta. Not a Hollywoodized adaptation, mind you, but the real thing. "The Lottery Bride" starts with one of those stout-hearted choruses singing a drinking song. The boys comport themselves like they are made out of wood. Where else are you going to see that?

Composer-arranger-conductor Herbert Stothart, who somehow managed to get co-composer credit on a parade of musicals by Friml, Romberg, Gershwin, Youmans and others — even "The Wizard of Oz," for heaven's sake — was connected here as well; in this case, oddly enough, he provided the original story, "Bride 66." And what a farfetched story. The action takes place in Norway, which you can tell by the funny costumes and the Viking-like sets. The tavern set, for example, is full of Norwegian architecture, along with a typically Norwegian proprietress in the person of Zasu Pitts. And a typically Norwegian bandleader, Joe E. Brown. (His backup orchestra, though, is black — unusual for 1930 Hollywood, let alone Norway — and probably a famous group of the period.)

The tenor and his fiancιe sing a song or two, after which — well, let's see. The girl's brother, a bank clerk, is in debt to a slimy Italian aviator. The girl seeks the slimy aviator's help; the tenor, seeing them together, fears the worst and flees to lumberjack land. The girl, after a stint in prison for protecting her brother, agrees to become a lottery bride (an early version of a mail order bride). She is shipped up north, where she is won by — the tenor's brother. Who — still mad at her for being found with the aviator — doesn't interfere with the impending marriage. Except in comes a dirigible — not the Hindenburg, but a cousin — en route to the North Pole. The pilot? Why, the Italian aviator, naturally. (He sings, too.) The whole thing ends on the Arctic ice floes, with dogs a-mushing and an icebreaker coming to the rescue with Jeanette on the prow.

All through this, they sing Friml tunes, which bear no relation to "Only a Rose," "The Indian Love Call," or even "Totem Tom-Tom." The long and short of it is that Arthur Hammerstein was sent back East, and that was that. "The Lottery Bride," which was supposed to be a big hit, wasn't. The film included a novel Technicolor sequence: the three men, dying on the ice, have musical flashbacks — in color — to scenes of their youth. This footage is apparently lost, though; the film was at some point edited down from 80 to 65 minutes, and it is this edited version that has made it to DVD.

The many lapses aside, "The Lottery Bride" nevertheless makes interesting watching. It's an Arthur Hammerstein-Rudolf Friml operetta, after all. . . .

(Steven Suskin is author of "Second Act Trouble," "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)