MovieChat Forums > Song of Love (1947) Discussion > Different kind of musical.

Different kind of musical.

posted 18 years ago by wmoores
8 replies | jump to latest

Song of Love has a slow start, but after the first fifteen minutes or so it becomes a great move. Katharine Hepburn, Paul Henreid, and Robert Walker make for a stellar cast. It is absolutely amazing to note the syncronization of the music with the hands of the performers. You'd swear that all three of the stars are actually playing the piano. In most movies where a non-musical star is at a piano keyboard, the hands are not shown actually playing the piano. If you like classical music, you'll like this movie in spite of a few gaps, lapses, and untruths.

[–] victorialhawkins 18 years ago

Although this movie sentimentalized the Schumann-Brahms story,the basic facts are correct. Schumann did have a severe mental illness that could be neither understood nor treated at the time. Brahms was in love with Clara but settled for lifelong friendship. In the 80's it became fashionable tobelieve that Schumann's illness was due to latent syphilis but no one save one reviewer here ever claimed that he and Brhms were possibly an item.

The real Clara Schumann was not as beautiful as Hepburn and of course was a widow with a huge family that she had a ard time looking after but she was a child prodigy who remained an acclaimed pianist till her death in the 1890's. Brahms was 14 years younger but survived her by only six months.

[–] jjelgar 18 years ago

Legend has it that Hepburn, already somewhat facile at the keyboard, insisted on learning the pieces she "played" in the film. She then lobbied to have her own performances used in the soundtrack, rather than those of Artur Rubenstein. But the studio had already spent a considerable sum for the famous virtuoso's versions and was not about to let her have her way. Incidentally, Jascha Heifitz, Isaac Stern, and other famous musicians also made appearances in and/or dubbed pieces for a number of films from the late 30s into the 50s.

[–] georgestrum 14 years ago

Mary Astor in another film with Bette Davis played a concert pianist in The Great Lie and actually played the piano for herself.

[–] lornagwater 8 years ago

Yes. Mary Astor also played for the duet she sang with Leon Ames in 'Meet Me in St. Louis'

[–] p_gruendler 12 years ago

I have grown, thanks to TCM, to love anything by Clarence Brown, and may have to spend the rest of my life writing his biography. If course, it will be heavily biased. To paraphrase a line from Herr Haslinger, "... Talent like his belongs to the world!"

[–] teaandoranges 12 years ago

The woman who played Lou gehrigs mother plays the maid ! Sappy but wonderful music.

[–] HarlowMGM 11 years ago

I thought the opening was fairly good, it was in the late middle of the picture where I found it a little dull as Schumann starting having trouble with his mental illness and was stressed by the underwhelming reception to his music. I think they could have cut the Brahms in love with Clara angle since the movie is a little overlong at two hours.

[–] cyninbend-149-610489 8 years ago

I agree. What a great movie if you love the music of Schumann, Brahms, and my favorite, Liszt. It's too bad that the times could not allow a frank discussion of mental illness and attraction in the movie, but we get great music and have to look up what little there is to know about their intensely private lives.