Bitter Sweet

Songbirds and lovebirds Carl and Sarah Linden (Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald) happily starve in a 19th-century Viennese garret, awaiting the day the world will cheer Carl's operetta. But a lecherous baron (George Sanders, oozing caddishness from every pore) with an eye for Sarah and a taste for duels threatens to turn their hope to tragedy. I'll See You Again, If You Could Only Come with Me, What Is Love? -- Noel Coward wrote some of his subtlest, most poignant songs for the stage version of Bitter Sweet and America's Singing Sweethearts give them screen immortality. Zigeuner, the grand finale, features MacDonald against a Technicolor palette as delicate and dramatic as the leading lady herself.

• musical