Mario Lanza's last movie enjoyed a reasonable success at the box office and will be enjoyed by his fans. It starts on a high note, with that glorious late 50s Technicolour and pleasing Italian locations - and Mario, while a bit heavy, gives an accomplished performance. He was very comfortable in front of the camera by this stage, and is full of presence, charisma bounce and humour - if he'd lived longer and had wanted to branch out, I could see him easily becoming a character actor, playing lively uncles, gangsters, tycoons and the like. It helps that he plays a character close to how one imagines the real Mario was (through a late Hollywood filter, of course) - temperamental, loving, a bit of an ego, running around with flash women (Zsa Zsa Gabor), worried about his weight.
Where the movie runs into trouble is with its story: Lanza falls in love with a deaf girl (Johanna Van Kozian) who can't hear his voice. And that's about it, really: her family are concerned, he tries to raise money for an operation, squabbles with his manager. There's about the same amount of story as The Great Caruso, and like that movie the action time is continually interrupted with slabs of Lanza performing famous opera pieces.
If you can accept the movie on that level you'll have a good time. Lanza's voice remains (to my untrained ears at least) powerful. I wish Von Kozian had been a little less irritating.
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