20 minutes in to "Interrupted Melody" and I realized I'd already seen it. It was called "With a Song in My Heart," and it starred Susan Hayward. Seriously, this movie is almost a virtual retread of the 1952 film. The only thing it's missing is a feisty nurse played by Thelma Ritter.
"Interrupted Melody" is about 10% biopic and 90% opera. There is a lot of opera in this movie. Like, a lot a lot. I mean I've seen operas that didn't have this much opera in them. The polio that threatens to derail Marjorie Lawrence's career is treated as a minor annoyance. There's one scene of her being sad that she's paralyzed, and then, problem solved!!, she just decides that she's better. And the last scene is so melodramatically shameless it makes even "Downton Abbey" blush.
Eleanor Parker won her third and final Best Actress Oscar nomination for this movie, but she's strangely hyper and overwrought, and spends most of her time on screen lip syncing. She always looks like she's trying too hard. Mysteriously, the screenplay, that seems like it could have been written by an auto-field computer program, won an Oscar for writers William Ludwig and Sonya Levien. And Helen Rose completed the film's trio of Oscar nominations by being recognized for her color costume design. She won the black and white award that year, for a different biopic starring none other than who?.......Susan Hayward!!
Grade: C+
"Interrupted Melody" is about 10% biopic and 90% opera. There is a lot of opera in this movie. Like, a lot a lot. I mean I've seen operas that didn't have this much opera in them. The polio that threatens to derail Marjorie Lawrence's career is treated as a minor annoyance. There's one scene of her being sad that she's paralyzed, and then, problem solved!!, she just decides that she's better. And the last scene is so melodramatically shameless it makes even "Downton Abbey" blush.
Eleanor Parker won her third and final Best Actress Oscar nomination for this movie, but she's strangely hyper and overwrought, and spends most of her time on screen lip syncing. She always looks like she's trying too hard. Mysteriously, the screenplay, that seems like it could have been written by an auto-field computer program, won an Oscar for writers William Ludwig and Sonya Levien. And Helen Rose completed the film's trio of Oscar nominations by being recognized for her color costume design. She won the black and white award that year, for a different biopic starring none other than who?.......Susan Hayward!!
Grade: C+