I am kind of ambivalent about watching classic Hollywood biopics: though I enjoy the evident professionalism at work, most of the time the backstories are almost complete fabrications and bear little resemblance to its subject's life! This one (emanating from Columbia and dealing with Polish composer Frederic Chopin), then, proved such a box-office smash that it spawned a whole series of pictures about the lives of famous composers – even so, 7 years previously, MGM had already done a sterling job on THE GREAT WALTZ (a biopic about Johann Strauss); indeed, the trend kept on intermittently through 1972 and, probably unintentionally, actually came full-circle with a remake of THE GREAT WALTZ! As I said, A SONG TO REMEMBER captured both the critics' (copping 6 Oscar nominations, including one to Cornel Wilde for Best Actor, though it eventually went home empty-handed) and public's fancy – the latter due, in no small measure, to its patriotic zeal (do not forget, WWII was still waging when this emerged). That said, the film's lack of fidelity to the facts (filtered with such potentially risible moments as the as-yet-unknown hero playing proficiently at a soiree' in a darkened room, then being revealed for who he is to the astonishment of one and all, by way of a candelabra: incidentally, this scene is said to have inspired Liberace's own flamboyant stage act!), Paul Muni's overstated performance as his teacher Professor Joseph Elsner, and also the unusual – albeit entirely authentic – depiction of Chopin's lover (played by Merle Oberon) sporting both a male name and clothing, has rendered the film pretty much a camp classic.
Consequently, its reputation has taken a beating with the passage of time – with this in mind, it was only released on R1 DVD (and without much fan-fare to boot) last year; by that time, I had already acquired a copy through ulterior sources, presumably derived from VHS (resulting in slightly washed-out colors, certainly in comparison to screen-grabs I have seen from the DVD edition)! However, to put things into perspective, in no way does A SONG TO REMEMBER really deserve this treatment; if anything, I was more impressed with Muni's performance (who mugged no worse than in his heyday, when he was himself playing famous historical figures and collecting various accolades for them!) than Wilde's glum and rather stiff Chopin (though this latter quality actually stood him in good stead during the climax when he literally played himself to death – incidentally, the star 'mimicked' throughout to Jose' Iturbi on the piano – for the Polish cause and there goes another untruth and genuinely over-the-top sequence!). On a personal note, I own all but 3 of Muni's 22 films (though have actually only watched 9 thus far!) – his first two, THE VALIANT (which is scheduled for a TCM screening in a couple of days' time!) and the presumed-lost SEVEN FACES (both 1929), and the inexplicably ultra-rare THE WOMAN I LOVE (1937).
As for Oberon (perhaps still best-known as the wife of British movie-mogul Alexander Korda, whom she actually divorced a few months after the film under review was released!), in the role of the controlling George Sand (thus echoing the Rudolph Valentino/Natacha Rambova relationship in 3 biopics I have just watched on the Latin Lover prototype!), this was her most popular Hollywood effort since that other tragic romance – namely the William Wyler version of Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939). The supporting cast, then, includes Columbia contract players Nina Foch (as Chopin's Polish girlfriend) and George Macready (as author Alfred De Musset; an unfamiliar name to me but, apparently, one of his plays supplied the inspiration for Jean Renoir's masterpiece LA REGLE DU JEU {1939}!), reliable character actors George Coulouris (as Chopin's publisher), Ian Wolfe (as the latter's clerk), Howard Freeman (as a music critic whom Muni insults over his failure to recognize Chopin's genius), and even a debuting Darren McGavin (whom I failed to recognize as a music student!).
By the way, I watched A SONG TO REMEMBER (unsurprisingly, the title is meaningless!) in conjunction with a tribute to the late controversial director Ken Russell, who made several films for both TV and the cinema about great classical composers – though, oddly enough, not one specifically about Chopin himself; in fact, he was briefly featured in his idiosyncratic LISZTOMANIA (1975), which actually preceded this viewing while, here, that film's subject i.e. Franz Liszt has been given a sizeable part (played by Stephen Bekassy)! Speaking of Liszt, the director of this one would be assigned to a traditional Hollywood biopic on his life – SONG WITHOUT END (1960) – but, unfortunately, he died early during production (with George Cukor stepping in to complete the movie)! For the record, there is another Chopin biopic I am interested in checking out – Polish film-maker Andrzej Zulawski's German production THE BLUE NOTE (1991) – which promises to be as hysterical as any of Ken Russell's biopics of famous composers...but, alas, I have not yet managed to locate an English-friendly copy!
Consequently, its reputation has taken a beating with the passage of time – with this in mind, it was only released on R1 DVD (and without much fan-fare to boot) last year; by that time, I had already acquired a copy through ulterior sources, presumably derived from VHS (resulting in slightly washed-out colors, certainly in comparison to screen-grabs I have seen from the DVD edition)! However, to put things into perspective, in no way does A SONG TO REMEMBER really deserve this treatment; if anything, I was more impressed with Muni's performance (who mugged no worse than in his heyday, when he was himself playing famous historical figures and collecting various accolades for them!) than Wilde's glum and rather stiff Chopin (though this latter quality actually stood him in good stead during the climax when he literally played himself to death – incidentally, the star 'mimicked' throughout to Jose' Iturbi on the piano – for the Polish cause and there goes another untruth and genuinely over-the-top sequence!). On a personal note, I own all but 3 of Muni's 22 films (though have actually only watched 9 thus far!) – his first two, THE VALIANT (which is scheduled for a TCM screening in a couple of days' time!) and the presumed-lost SEVEN FACES (both 1929), and the inexplicably ultra-rare THE WOMAN I LOVE (1937).
As for Oberon (perhaps still best-known as the wife of British movie-mogul Alexander Korda, whom she actually divorced a few months after the film under review was released!), in the role of the controlling George Sand (thus echoing the Rudolph Valentino/Natacha Rambova relationship in 3 biopics I have just watched on the Latin Lover prototype!), this was her most popular Hollywood effort since that other tragic romance – namely the William Wyler version of Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939). The supporting cast, then, includes Columbia contract players Nina Foch (as Chopin's Polish girlfriend) and George Macready (as author Alfred De Musset; an unfamiliar name to me but, apparently, one of his plays supplied the inspiration for Jean Renoir's masterpiece LA REGLE DU JEU {1939}!), reliable character actors George Coulouris (as Chopin's publisher), Ian Wolfe (as the latter's clerk), Howard Freeman (as a music critic whom Muni insults over his failure to recognize Chopin's genius), and even a debuting Darren McGavin (whom I failed to recognize as a music student!).
By the way, I watched A SONG TO REMEMBER (unsurprisingly, the title is meaningless!) in conjunction with a tribute to the late controversial director Ken Russell, who made several films for both TV and the cinema about great classical composers – though, oddly enough, not one specifically about Chopin himself; in fact, he was briefly featured in his idiosyncratic LISZTOMANIA (1975), which actually preceded this viewing while, here, that film's subject i.e. Franz Liszt has been given a sizeable part (played by Stephen Bekassy)! Speaking of Liszt, the director of this one would be assigned to a traditional Hollywood biopic on his life – SONG WITHOUT END (1960) – but, unfortunately, he died early during production (with George Cukor stepping in to complete the movie)! For the record, there is another Chopin biopic I am interested in checking out – Polish film-maker Andrzej Zulawski's German production THE BLUE NOTE (1991) – which promises to be as hysterical as any of Ken Russell's biopics of famous composers...but, alas, I have not yet managed to locate an English-friendly copy!