One of the great "what if"s of the Golden Years of Hollywood: what if Leo B Mayer hadn't stormed out of the studio in 1951? Could he have made the studio stronger and turned around his decline? We'll never know and just because people don't like Dore Schary doesn't mean that Mayer's genius would have survived through the 50s - but this was made as late as 1951 and was a massive, massive hit, and has Mayer's fingerprints all over it. He still did have, at times, a genuine feel for what America wanted and they gobbled down the Mayer MGM formula here: glossy sets, charismatic and beautiful stars, wall to wall music, mother love (the young Caruso blubs over his mother when she's sick just like Andy Hardy), America love, wholesome entertainment, unpleasantness is hinted at rather than shown.
The story isn't much, just another rise-to-riches tale, really - but Mario Lanza is perfect in the lead and certainly has charisma. I'd never seen him in anything else - he was very impressive, although you can see him struggling with his weight. When Caruso is not singing - which is often, and this film includes some incredibly well done recreation of famous opera tunes - most of the "plot" involves Lanza romancing a winsome Ann Blyth who has this smile permanently fixed on her face. He becomes famous, gets her, overcomes some light opposition. It's a bit of a shock when Caruso dies (he has a few coughs, people discuss that he's sick, he sings while ill then - pow - that's it, he's gone).
Why don't people make opera films any more? I think they would work. Maybe they need a Lanza to work.
No comments:
Post a Comment