La' Ci Darem La Mano

This lovely song from Mozart's Don Giovanni is sung by Sinatra and Grayson in a restaurant. The song underscores the love Peter Lawford feels for Kathryn Grayson. In 1947, most of the audience would get the allusion immediately. In the song, Don Giovanni (Sinatra) wants Zerlina (Grayson) to run off with him, Zerlina suspects only the worst. But the times the camera focuses on Peter Lawford's face, he seems petrified that in fact Kathryn Grayson would be seduced by Sinatra's charms and run off with him. In one part of the song, Kathryn Grayson runs into what looks to be a string of garlic--garlic the symbol used to ward off evil.

Kathryn Grayson was trained in classical music; Frank Sinatra, the troubadour who learned his craft from Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra and Grayson are performing the skit not in the opera house or the symphony stage, but in a restaurant. When you listen to the film recording, and pardon if I cast offense to those who know these things more thoroughly than I do, but it seems to compare well with Cesare Siepi and Mirella Freni, or Anna Netrebko and Bo Skorhus. (Available thru Youtube.) Watching facial motions, hand motions of all the performers, it seems that Sinatra and Grayson captured the essence of the song precisely. Their articulation of the Italian is good, their movements reflect the song's intent.