Kiss Me Goodbye (1933) review - A creaky but cute musical distraction

If you have a rainy Sunday afternoon and a soft spot for dusty 1930s musical misunderstandings, Kiss Me Goodbye is a harmless way to waste eighty minutes. But if you hate theatrical mugging and squeaky old audio, you will probably want to turn it off after ten minutes.

The setup is extremely simple. Two English guys find themselves in Germany, see a pretty cabaret singer, and decide they are the ones who must make her a star.

Magda Schneider plays the singer, and she is easily the best part of this whole business. She has this incredibly bright smile that almost makes you forget how thin the actual script is. 😅

The two guys are played by Arthur Riscoe and Naunton Wayne. Riscoe is the loud one who does a lot of physical comedy that doesn't always land anymore.

Wayne is much better, playing his usual dry, slightly bewildered self. He looks like he wandered onto the wrong movie set but decided to stay because the tea was hot.

There is this one scene in a cafe where they try to translate a joke to a local. It goes on for what feels like five minutes and nobody is laughing, not even the extras in the background who look totally bored.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Kiss Me Goodbye (1933) through its definitive frames.

It made me think of how different comedy was back then compared to older silent films like Straight Shooting, where things actually felt alive. Here, the biggest conflict is whether a song gets sung in the right key or if someone gets their feelings hurt over a misheard word.

The music itself is... okay, I guess? The songs are catchy in that annoying way where you find yourself humming them hours later against your own free will.

I did notice the sound quality is pretty rough during some of the indoor scenes. Sometimes it sounds like they recorded the dialogue inside a giant metal tin can in the middle of a windy field.

Also, the actress playing the aunt has some wild facial expressions. She looks genuinely terrified every time the camera points near her.

It's obviously not a masterpiece, and the ending just sort of happens without much warning. It's like the writers ran out of paper and just wrote "the end" on a napkin. 🤷‍♂️

Still, if you like old-school European charm and don't mind a bit of creakiness, it's a decent little watch. Just don't expect it to stay in your mind for more than an hour after the credits roll.