I have a hobby whereby I watch all Academy Award nominated movies for best picture, actor/actress, supporting actor/actress. It's a fun hobby.
I watched "A Song to Remember" today as part of this project. Boy was that painful. Sometimes you really have to sit through some chestnuts in order to be able to check off a move on the spreadsheet.
Could Paul Muni be any hammier? Could Cornel Wilde have been more miscast? Could the acting in general be any lamer?
Sheesh!
Well, speak for yourself! However, I watched it and relished the music and the story. I wonder how much of it is really factual? I loved Cornel Wilde as Chopin. He was much better than Hugh Grant in another adaptation called "Impromptu". I also thought Paul Muni was very likable and sweet.
share I just wanted someone to throw a blanket over that annoying Paul Muni; he looked like a refugee from some bad children's theatre production with all his
overacting. Without him, the film wouldn't have been half bad.
I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!
Oh my, Leticia, so true. I mean, Hugh Grant as Chopin? Come on, let's face it, Cornel did a great job. And the resemblance, it must be said, was HUGE. It seems like he came from some of Chopin's portraits. Truly amazing.
Sand wasn't a blast, though. It could have been better, sure. But, oh my god, Liszt was PERFECT. I almost wept. So hot.
That Hugh Grant abortion was HORRIBLE! "Impromptu" I believe it was called.
There is much drama in the life of Chopin without the need for embellishment, quite as much as in the life of Mozart and Beethoven. If only Gary Oldman would play him.. :)
For an accurate read about Chopin's life, try "Chopin's Funeral", a short and riveting book.
-drl
Much as I prefer films from "classic" Hollywood to more recent decades, IMPROMPTU is a vastly superior telling of the Chopin/Sand story with far better casting as well as a much superior script. Hugh Grant was absolutely perfect as Chopin, capturing his softness, meekness, fine manners, and frankly ability to be "whipped" by Sand. Gary Oldman as pretty boy Chopin?? Cornel Wilde looks right but they've made him an almost a piano-playing John Wayne, hardly someone who could be dominated by a opininated woman. Judy Davis was also a much better choice as George Sand than Merle Oberon, who was too conventionally female even in those mannish outfits. Chopin was at first repelled by Sand's adrogynous look which Davis captures well, Merle Oberon was just too glamorous to pull that off although I think she did a good job playing a stereotypical "bossy" woman.
shareNormally, Paul Muni's wife would be on the set when he was making a movie. He looked to her to tell him when he was hamming it up. Unfortunately, she was banned from the set of "A Song to Remember" and it shows. I read this in his biography.
shareThe character of Elsner was cast to be an overblown, self-important buffoon. Muni was just doing his job. The man had six Academy Award nominations in about 25 movies---this back in the Golden era of Hollywood.. He must have known something about acting.
shareHey, I love Paul Muni. There's nothing I wouldn't watch him in. I just didn't think he was right for this role. C'est la vie.
shareYou're spot on. Music aside, everything about this movie reeks. If they had set out to make the worst film possible, they could not have done better (or should I say, "worse"?)
What also amazes me is that so often the true life of a famous person is so much more interesting and profound than the dreck that is produced by Hollywood about the same subject. Such is the case here, in spades.