Director: HENRY KOSTER. Screenplay: Bruce Manning, Charles Kenyon, James Milhauser and Hans Kraly. Original screen story: Hans Kraly. Photography Joseph Valentine. Film editor: Bernard W. Burton. Production designer: John Harkrider. Associate art director: Jack Martin Smith. Costumes: Vera West. Assistant cameraman: James V. King. Assistant director: Frank Shaw. Sound recording: Joseph Lapis (engineer) and Bernard B. Brown (supervisor). Associate producer: Joe Pasternak. Executive producer: Charles R. Rogers.
Songs: "It's Raining Sunbeams" (Durbin) by Sam Coslow (lyrics) and Frederick Hollander (music); "A Heart That's Free" (Durbin) by Alfred G. Robyn and Thomas T. Railey; "Libramo" aria (Durbin) from "La Traviata" by Francesco Maria Piave (lyrics) and Giuseppe Verdi (music); "Alleluia" (Durbin) from "Exultate, Jubilate K165" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Orchestral music conducted by Leopold Stokowski includes the Prelude to the 3rd Act of "Lohengrin" by Richard Wagner, the Second Hungarian Rhapsody by Franz Liszt and part of the Fifth Symphony of Peter I. Tchaikovsky. Music director: Charles Previn. Vocal coach: Andres de Segurola.
Copyright 3 September 1937 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York opening at the Roxy, 17 September 1937. U.S. release: September 1937. Australian release: 6 January 1938. 9 reels. 84 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Girl persuades Leopold Stokowski to conduct "Orchestra of Jobless Musicians".
NOTES: Academy Award, Best Music Score. Also nominated for Best Picture (The Life of Emile Zola), Original Story (A Star Is Born), Sound Recording (Hurricane) and Film Editing (Lost Horizon).
COMMENT: "Fairy tales don't happen," sighs Adolphe Menjou. Well I'm here to tell you they do — at least in this most entertaining musical fairy tale in which a truly outstanding group of players help us suspend our disbelief. The script could have wallowed in sentiment, but its creators have chosen a humorous approach which makes the underlying drama even more pointed and poignant.
You'd have to see more than a hundred films to beat this assemblage of players — both thespic and musical. Stokowski of course combines both worlds. With his slim figure, cultured voice, aesthetic face, de rigeur white hair and quizzical curl of an eyebrow, his is a commanding presence. Miss Durbin's charm needs no encomium. Alice Brady is delightfully dotty in her one long scene (if we exclude the snip of her at the introductory concert).
Thereafter Eugene Palette keeps the comic ball running, with a nice assist from Jed Prouty.
Production values are particularly lavish. Koster's camera is more fluid than usual while his compositions have an appealing tightness and sense of balance that his later work signally lacks. Although we are blinded by light whenever the camera closes in on Miss Durbin, Valentine's photography is like-wise commendably attractive. Film editing is smooth, the orchestral numbers in particular being cut in a most skillful manner.
OTHER VIEWS: Fine music grafted on to a slushy story about a hundred jobless musicians. Fortunately, there are a number of agreeably humorous interludes, though director Koster doesn't make as much of them as he could have. For instance, the feather-in-the-orchestra- seats routine could have been extended so that it bobbed up all over the place. And why not have the orchestra chime in with Stokowski as he plays the piano?
Songs: "It's Raining Sunbeams" (Durbin) by Sam Coslow (lyrics) and Frederick Hollander (music); "A Heart That's Free" (Durbin) by Alfred G. Robyn and Thomas T. Railey; "Libramo" aria (Durbin) from "La Traviata" by Francesco Maria Piave (lyrics) and Giuseppe Verdi (music); "Alleluia" (Durbin) from "Exultate, Jubilate K165" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Orchestral music conducted by Leopold Stokowski includes the Prelude to the 3rd Act of "Lohengrin" by Richard Wagner, the Second Hungarian Rhapsody by Franz Liszt and part of the Fifth Symphony of Peter I. Tchaikovsky. Music director: Charles Previn. Vocal coach: Andres de Segurola.
Copyright 3 September 1937 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York opening at the Roxy, 17 September 1937. U.S. release: September 1937. Australian release: 6 January 1938. 9 reels. 84 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Girl persuades Leopold Stokowski to conduct "Orchestra of Jobless Musicians".
NOTES: Academy Award, Best Music Score. Also nominated for Best Picture (The Life of Emile Zola), Original Story (A Star Is Born), Sound Recording (Hurricane) and Film Editing (Lost Horizon).
COMMENT: "Fairy tales don't happen," sighs Adolphe Menjou. Well I'm here to tell you they do — at least in this most entertaining musical fairy tale in which a truly outstanding group of players help us suspend our disbelief. The script could have wallowed in sentiment, but its creators have chosen a humorous approach which makes the underlying drama even more pointed and poignant.
You'd have to see more than a hundred films to beat this assemblage of players — both thespic and musical. Stokowski of course combines both worlds. With his slim figure, cultured voice, aesthetic face, de rigeur white hair and quizzical curl of an eyebrow, his is a commanding presence. Miss Durbin's charm needs no encomium. Alice Brady is delightfully dotty in her one long scene (if we exclude the snip of her at the introductory concert).
Thereafter Eugene Palette keeps the comic ball running, with a nice assist from Jed Prouty.
Production values are particularly lavish. Koster's camera is more fluid than usual while his compositions have an appealing tightness and sense of balance that his later work signally lacks. Although we are blinded by light whenever the camera closes in on Miss Durbin, Valentine's photography is like-wise commendably attractive. Film editing is smooth, the orchestral numbers in particular being cut in a most skillful manner.
OTHER VIEWS: Fine music grafted on to a slushy story about a hundred jobless musicians. Fortunately, there are a number of agreeably humorous interludes, though director Koster doesn't make as much of them as he could have. For instance, the feather-in-the-orchestra- seats routine could have been extended so that it bobbed up all over the place. And why not have the orchestra chime in with Stokowski as he plays the piano?