Absolutely beautiful voice
If there is a more beautiful singer in movie history than Jeanette McDonald, I haven't heard her. Julie Andrews is the closest I can think of. What a break from all the wailing banshees who sing today.
shareGuess at 67 I'm not old enough to appreciate a mechanically-repetitious quiver around a perfect note with the total absence of expression.
This is just another of the infamously dreadful MGM musicals of the era. What on earth were Gable and Tracy doing in it?
An operatic movie voice you can listen to for more than 8 bars is Christine McIntyre. Google her, you might be surprised.
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Guacamole in my choos
I'm somewhere in the middle here on Jeanette's voice. I understand the complaint that her voice is not very expressive, to be sure, but at the same time I respect her never being flat and, while again one can say she does not excell at rhythmic phrasing, in defense of her the musical style she worked in generally did not require that. In fact the more popular songstyles she used also worked for her, imo.
Funny I feel the same about her appearance. I think in San Francisco she generally looked great, but can't say that about all her work or her pictures. She perhaps aged a bit problematically, and needed to be photographed in a certain way.
But in this film? She looked great.