Jimmy Durante was a comedic force of nature. He stole almost every scene he appeared in, putting those around him in the shade. And Lauritz Melchior also turned out to be a great natural comedian. (Who would have thunk it? The great Wagnerian tenor of his generation, not a great actor in those roles from all reports, turned out to be a naturally funny guy on screen.) So, I had great hopes for this movie.
But they were dashed. The two really have only one good scene together.
Instead, the majority of this movie is devoted to June Allyson, who went on to do much better things, and Kathryn Grayson, whom I have never liked, saddled with an awful script. (Even though she is very closely miked, the last scene of the movie, in which we hear Grayson singing with Melchior, sounds like a duet between a lion and a shrill mouse.)
The result: a really forgettable movie.
If only MGM had seen the comedic potential of Melchior and Durante together in the same movie
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On watching this again three years later, I don't find much more to recommend it.
The script is definitely the worst thing in the movie. It turns around the already old cliché opposing classical and popular music.
Melchior gets lots to sing, but his two big scenes are *fake* operas, words and staging set to concert music (by Liszt and someone else).
After all the talk about Rimsky Korsakov's Coq d'Or/Golden Cockerel, we are presented with the first of the two opera scenes, which has a different title and no music from Le Coq d'Or. That's bizarre.
My favorite musical number in this movie is Grayson in her first burlesque number. She's really very good there, and suggests that all the subsequent efforts to give her "serious music" were largely a waste of her talents.
Though I've seen it twice now, I can't find any reason for sitting through it even once.
But they were dashed. The two really have only one good scene together.
Instead, the majority of this movie is devoted to June Allyson, who went on to do much better things, and Kathryn Grayson, whom I have never liked, saddled with an awful script. (Even though she is very closely miked, the last scene of the movie, in which we hear Grayson singing with Melchior, sounds like a duet between a lion and a shrill mouse.)
The result: a really forgettable movie.
If only MGM had seen the comedic potential of Melchior and Durante together in the same movie
-------------------------------
On watching this again three years later, I don't find much more to recommend it.
The script is definitely the worst thing in the movie. It turns around the already old cliché opposing classical and popular music.
Melchior gets lots to sing, but his two big scenes are *fake* operas, words and staging set to concert music (by Liszt and someone else).
After all the talk about Rimsky Korsakov's Coq d'Or/Golden Cockerel, we are presented with the first of the two opera scenes, which has a different title and no music from Le Coq d'Or. That's bizarre.
My favorite musical number in this movie is Grayson in her first burlesque number. She's really very good there, and suggests that all the subsequent efforts to give her "serious music" were largely a waste of her talents.
Though I've seen it twice now, I can't find any reason for sitting through it even once.