The Love Parade is really a gem of screwball comedy, long before that genre was "officially" inaugurated in 1932. For if screwball asserts that the road to romance is paved with cynicism, of which women are the chief bearers, then this delightful musical outdistances all takers before the race begins. Maurice Chevalier marries Jeanette MacDonald, ruler of a feminist queendom, and discovers his true position when the wedding ceremony pronounces them "Wife and Man." Valet Lupino Lane and maid Lillian Roth provide an amusing commentary on their masters' affairs. The witty plot satirizes contemporary mores (the kingdom of Sylvania, down to the smallest school child, is obsessed with the fact that their queen is unmarried) as well as film/operetta conventions (MacDonald sings the opening aria in her underwear). Lubitsch revels in the artificiality of the musical form rather than trying to disguise it; at the same time, he manages to keep the fluidity of his silent films by using such devices as off-screen speech or conversations which take place, unheard, behind a window.