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Customer Reviews of The Guardsman

Amazing Showcase for Two Larger-Than-Life Legends
The Guardsman is an amazing motion picture. Although it does not take full advantage of its being a movie and treats itself more like an expanded stage play, it is an invaluable and fleeting glimpse of the greatest on-stage acting duo of all time, husband and wife stars Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. The acting, needless to say, is phenomenal. Lunt fully imbodies his character, a pompous but insecure actor who needs constant praise to keep himself going. His role is delicious comedy, but he manages to bring in hilarious pity and sorrow when he suspects his wife is being unfaithful. Fontanne, although not as beautiful as some of M-G-M's other actresses of the era (Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, and the like), completely makes up for this with her subtle and sexy performance. No one could have pulled off a role like this other than Ms. Fontanne. She manages to make her philanderings charming and acceptable, while still managing admiration and love of her husband. But perhaps the real reason this film is so engrossing is because it is a view of Lunt and Fontanne being Lunt and Fontanne. They are practically playing self-parodies of themselves, and are known in the credits simply as "The Actor" and "The Actress." Also, although Lunt would later decline movie offers with his famous quote "We can be bought but we can't be bored," he and his wife look like they are having more fun than Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour had making the Road pictures. Never do they look forced or unused to the medium of film. They are having a ball in close-ups and longshots, and their fun radiates off of their faces, off of the screen, and onto the audience. It is a magical film experience, only equaled by 1931's Private Lives (also a theatrical adaptation and also directed by Sidney Franklin) in charm, wit, and sophistication. With only this performance for new generations to discover, it is a shame that the legitimate stage isn't as permanent an art form as film.

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A CURIO
Theatrical legends Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne act together in their only movie. THE GUARDSMAN is a frothy sex farce which owes much to the relative freedom of that pre-code era. The stage greats play themselves in sense, in that they are married stage actors! The husband becomes suspicious when Fontanne plays Chopin on the piano gets seemingly lost in private reveries; he thinks she's being unfaithful. Lunt re-invents himself all disguised as a Russian guardsman - to whom his wife seems a veritable pushover............Does she know all along that the mysterious Russian is her husband? The narrative leaves one in serious doubt, a factor abetted by the sly acting of Miss Fontanne. There were no stars in the Hollywood of 1931 who could even approximate the Lunts' blend of class, style, technique and theatrical rapport. Director Sidney Franklin remarked "What I learned from the Lunts in a few weeks, I couldn't have picked up in a lifetime!". With their incomparable talent for expert ensemble acting and subtle nuance, the Lunts made THE GUARDSMAN one of the best films of 1931. Remade (rather forgettably) in 1941 as THE CHOCOLATE SOLDIER with Rise Stevens and Nelson Eddy.