Ogosmith
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Philippa
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Jenni Devyn
Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
jacobs-greenwood
Directed by Irving Rapper, with a screenplay co-written by Howard Koch and Elliot Paul from Sonya Levien's story, this fictionalized biography of George Gershwin captures the spirit of the great composer's passion and features much of his varied music, including the titled composition. Robert Alda (father of Alan) plays Gershwin (in his film debut), Herbert Rudley plays his brother Ira. Joan Leslie and Alexis Smith play women in his life, Charles Coburn plays the music publisher who discovered him while Albert Bassermann plays the music teacher he most respected. Oscar Levant plays himself, a friend of the Gershwins, whose parents are played by Morris Carnovsky and Rosemary DeCamp. Julie Bishop plays Ira's wife. Conductor Paul Whiteman, singer Al Jolson, producer George White, pianist Hazel Scott, and singer Anne Brown play themselves.The film, which was actually shot in 1943 and sat on the shelf due to the backlog of war and escapist films being released at that time, received Oscar nominations for its Score and Sound Recording.Though Momma Rose (DeCamp) buys her boys, George (Mickey Roth) & Ira (Darryl Hickman) Gershwin, a piano for their New York (The Bronx) apartment above the family grocery store, to give it class, it is Poppa Morris (Carnovsky) who enables George to pursue his obvious gift. Through the years, George moves from one music instructor to another until he finally works under the tutelage of Professor Franck (Bassermann). Around the age of twenty, George (Alda) briefly plays relief piano for Chico Marx before he finds himself hawking "free to performers" Remick music for tone-deaf manager Mr. Kast (Charles Halton), during which time he meets wannabe singer Julie Adams (Leslie). When he's fired by Kast for playing the music he'd written himself, he finds himself in the waiting area of Harms Inc., run by music publisher Max Dreyfus (Coburn), with Oscar Levant, who's also trying to see the publisher. Dreyfus likes Gershwin's song Swanee so much, he hires him for $35/week and phones Al Jolson, who makes it a smash hit in his show at the Winter Garden ("Sinbad").Gershwin enjoys great financial success with hit after hit, but his discussions with Franck, who talks of Schubert, Wagner, Beethoven and Brahms, make him feel that he's missing something. He writes a musical for Julie called "Half Past Eight" which features S Marvelous, but it bombs. George says that he doesn't have time for failures and, for the rest of his life, drives himself relentlessly to create and explore new areas of music. His father now owns a Turkish bath, and Ira is starting to write lyrics.In the bath, George meets a friend of Dreyfus's named George White, who produces an annual string of musical comedies called "Scandals" with Gershwin's songs. Poppa marks his son's success by the length of the songs he writes. George continues to experiment, but has another temporary setback when he tries to write blues music. George learns that Ira is to marry Lee (Bishop) during a dinner in which Dreyfus and Franck "debate" the best use of George's talent; Levant and Julie are also in attendance. Conductor Paul Whiteman recognized George's capacity for the blues and takes him to Aeolian Hall where lots of famous persons (including Will Wright as Rachmaninoff) hear his "Rhapsody in Blue" concert. It is well received but Professor Franck, who was unable to attend due to illness, dies which tempers George's enthusiasm.George decides to go to Paris, intending to study per Professor Franck's wishes. However, in a nightclub he hears Hazel Scott play & sing his music and then meets Christine Gilbert (Smith). She is an artist herself, a painter, and they have some good times together. She introduces him to Ravel (Oscar Loraine) of Bolero fame and soon learns that George is consumed by his music. Still, she returns with him to an unexpected "welcome home" party in New York where she and, the waiting, Julie are made to feel unimportant by George's egocentric attention to his gift, at Levant's expense as well. After singing Embraceable You, Julie runs out on George and soon, after giving him a dog, so does Christine. George returns to Paris and writes "An American in Paris".George returns home in time to see his father die of leukemia. Based on his father's dying words, George finds Julie in Miami, but she pretends to be engaged to her bandleader; she refuses to come between him and his talent. He completes his opera "Porgy and Bess", starring Anne Brown, which earns praise from Dreyfus even if it receives mixed reviews. George, Ira, and Oscar travel to Los Angeles by train, but George's health is failing. He experiences splitting headaches to go along with his heartbreak. He has a brief recovery when he hears that Julie will come to be with him, but he dies as Oscar is playing a concert back in New York. The film ends with a concert of Gershwin's music, being played in his honor.
Robert J. Maxwell
The music, of course, is a treat. What a florescence of vernacular music America experienced between 1920 and 1955. Not just Gershwin but Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Harry Warren, and a dozen others whose tunes have become part of a sort of golden songbook.This black-and-white précis of George Gershwin's brief life manages to squeeze in quite a few tunes, as well as some of his more ambitious work. And they're well done. Oscar Levant plays the piano and Oscar Levant. He's great, pustular with humor.If we're to believe the biographical part, or even part of the biographical part, Gershwin really got around in musical circles -- meeting such stars of the classical world as Ravel and Milhaud.The family part, indulgent father, practical mother, also passes muster. Somewhere along the line, though, we get Gershwin's approach/approach conflict with honest and loving showgirl Joan Leslie, on one side, and neurotic, artist manqué and socialite Alexis Smith on the other. It seems to me I've heard that song before. We can hear a different version in "Young Man With a Horn". And if we replace adoring Joan Leslie here with adoring Mamma, we get "The Benny Goodman Story." It's a strict Hollywood product. Music aside, there's hardly an original note in this movie, not even the "diminished seventh" that Gershwin's first publisher refers to, whatever it is. I'm more familiar with diminished fifths.
Dana Rose Crystal
The film is overly long, due to the length of the musical pieces, and the film is tedious. Does not compare with better biopics, such as Yankee Doodle Dandy and that one with Bob Hope as Eddie Foy. Those had humor. And the Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again, though also fictitious, are far better.But it is a piece of history and has some real people in it, such as the GREAT AL JOLSON and I don't know who that funny dancing man is in the scene showing the first "Scandals" (maybe it is Shep Houghton, whose IMDb bio lists many appearances where he sadly wasn't even credited. He seems extremely talented and is still alive, apparently!) Hazel Scott, who appears in the film as a black singer in Paris, is not exactly playing herself, per se, since she is too young to have been a Gershwin contemporary, is SOOOOOO excellent, though. I remember her on other TV shows of the 1960s and I guess must have seen her on "Julia" as well. But she was a question on a TV game show I saw--I think it was that show "Cash Cab" so there is a trivia question for you. She ought to have a biopic of her own.I am sick of people insulting Al Jolson! Shut up idiots! He helped make the success of many songwriters and artists, such as Gershwin and Irving Berlin. So it is OK that this song Blue Monday Blues is done with white actors in brown (blackface) makeup? and bad for Jolson to be in "burnt cork"? Get over this PC Police attitude! Jolson ends up losing his place in history because the PC police moan and groan and make themselves into sanctimonious critics of Jolson. THEY have no talent of their own. I am insulted for Jolson that in a recent documentary of Jewish Broadway musicians they cut down Jolson by referring to this scene in this film as a "now shameful" episode of entertainment history, yadda yadda how bad it is to be in blackface, ignoring Irving Berlin's past in minstrel shows. Al Jolson was excellent and not a bigot (see an interview Johnny Carson had with Eubie Blake, defending Jolson). He deserves his place in history.
bkoganbing
Of all our famous Tin Pan Alley composers George Gershwin alone managed to bridge that gap between the old masters of Europe and our own American musical traditions. I've always had a particular affinity for his music, maybe because he and I share the same birthday, 49 years apart though. He did so much in his life of 38 years and left so much unwritten and unsung it's impossible to comprehend all this beauty could have come from the mind of one man.Rhapsody In Blue is no better or worse than some of the other Hollywood biographies of our composers. The idea was to make a musical picture and story is always sacrificed, especially in the accuracy department. Joan Leslie and Alexis Smith play a compilation of characters of many women involved in George Gershwin's life. It is true however that Gershwin sacrificed all for his art. He wanted to attain heights that no American composer ever did and he succeeded.There is also the problem of contracts and copyrights in making these kind of films. Certain Gershwin standards you won't hear because either Warner Brothers didn't have the rights or Jack Warner was spending way too much money for the Gershwin songs to begin with. Al Jolson, Paul Whiteman, and Oscar Levant all appear as themselves in this, the story of Gershwin could not be told without them. Jolson introduced Gershwin's first hit song of Swanee, he interpolated it in one of his shows which he always did. Paul Whiteman, the King of Jazz, took that crown with his concert at Aeolian Hall of Rhapsody In Blue from whence this film gets its title. It maybe the most well known instrumental piece of music by an American composer ever.And certainly no life of Gershwin could have even been filmed without Oscar Levant whose friendship and abiding affection for George Gershwin was well known. Levant's wit was devastating, even upon himself and his friend George. But he worshiped at the altar of that music.But a real treat for me was Anne Brown, the original Bess from Porgy and Bess singing Summertime. That alone is worth seeing this film.Hazel Scott, singer, jazz pianist, and outspoken civil rights advocate plays a Josephine Baker type role and does several Gershwin numbers while he's in Paris. The film sadly makes no mention of Fred Astaire or Gertrude Lawrence both of whom are very important in George Gershwin's career. And it would have been nice to see Victor Moore playing Throttlebottom from Of Thee I Sing which got a one line mention about it winning a Pulitzer Prize and that was it.Robert Alda plays the title role and he did get good reviews and to the limited extent the script gave the character, he does capture the essence of the driven Gershwin. Stardom in Hollywood would elude Alda however, he'd have to wait for Broadway and Guys And Dolls.I was sorry to see the role of Ira Gershwin by Herbert Rudley given such a short shrift. Ira was an interesting man in his own right. He wrote lyrics with several other name composers both before and after his brother's demise. In fact he wrote with others specifically to establish his own credentials so no one would think he was just riding on brother George's coattails.Gershwin's one man who could use a new biographical film. Maybe we can get a better idea of his life, have his songs done in proper chronological order and see him from another century's perspective.Until then Rhapsody In Blue will give you a general idea.
