ltlacey Review of Humoresque

Humoresque (1946)

A young virtuoso violinist and his patron fall in love.

[6/10 · 12 February 2009]

First, and foremost, if you are a classical music fan you will love this movie. The score was perfect for the somewhat lame story going on between Crawford and Garfield. Neither, in my opinion, quite pulled it off as to who they were supposed to be. He, a moody and temperamental musician and she a lonely and desperate wife. The movie is worth the time for every single scene where Oscar Levant was in, especially when he was playing the piano. And yes, that was him. And yes, those were Isaac Stern's fingers playing away. We never know who was doing the bowing, other than some other "famous" violinist, and those who play can tell when there were a few misses, but we ignore them. It's all worth it just to see Oscar and hear all that beautiful music and see real musicians playing (the orchestra). Anyway, Boray, played by Garfield, is a natural prodigy and he somehow gets the attention of Helen (Crawford) at a party. She likes to support the arts, and we're supposed to believe that she falls in love with him from the very beginning. Hard to tell really. He claims he loves her, but we all know what he loves is his music, and even the young lady, also a musician, who happens to love him too, realizes this. Now, that could be seen in her face. She knew that Boray could never belong to anyone. Then we have the ending scene, where, with the beautiful music of Wagner's classic Tristan and Isolde, Helen makes her final sacrifice so that Boray can go on doing what he is meant to do. The tagline said this was like a soap opera, a real tear-jerker, but the only time I shed a tear was remembering Isaac Stern. There was nothing in the movie to make one feel oh so awful and sorry for Helen, nor Boray.