The Love Parade

Ernst Lubitsch's first sound film and the first Hollywood musical to weave songs into the narrative rather than stopping the story for a number. Maurice Chevalier plays a womanizing military attaché recalled to the kingdom of Sylvania, where the young queen (Jeanette MacDonald, in her film debut) decides to marry him. The comedy turns on the marriage of state: the consort chafes at being a decorative husband, and the queen cannot run a kingdom and a romance at the same time. Lubitsch's touch, the innuendo delivered with a wink, is already fully formed. The film earned six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.