Night Song

1948 "His Music Told of Love He Dared Not Whisper!"
6.4| 1h42m| NR| en
Details

A socialite pretends to be poor and blind in her plan to help a blinded pianist.

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

All Prime Video Movies and TV Shows. Cancel anytime. Watch Now

Trailers & Clips

Reviews

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
morrison-dylan-fan Getting lucky in catching the charming 1951 movie Two Tickets to Broadway,I decided to keep a look out for other similar titles appearing on the BBC. Finding the only DVD around to be a Warner Archives edition that would cost £15 to import (!) I was happy to spot that the BBC iPlayer had an obscure gem,which led to me getting ready to perform a morning song.The plot:Becoming blind from an accident, classical musician Dan Evans sinks into dark seedy clubs where Evans is paid in beer and burgers. Catching some of his act at a slightly more up-market club, socialite Cathy Mallory asks Evans if she can become his benefactor.Still bitter about his blindness,Evans rejects the offer.Shortly after his exchange with Mallory,Evans quits the club. Keen to track him down,Mallory gets bandleader Chick Morgan to arrange a secret encounter between them. Wanting Evans to feel that she understands where he is coming from,Mallory changes her name to Mary Willey,and pretends to be blind.View on the film:Learning to play the piano for the film, Dana Andrews gives an excellent performance as Evans,whose joy behind a piano Andrews makes sing,which masks the blind bitterness that Andrews covers Evans eyes with off-stage. Trying to stop Evans from catching her real sight, Merle Oberon gives a terrific performance as Mallory,with Oberon lapping up Mallory's Melodrama glamour with a breezy,loved up atmosphere.Taking some big leaps in the credibility of Evans and Mallory's romance,the screenplay by Frank Fenton/Dick Irving Hyland & DeWitt Bodeen shade some of the gaps in by allowing Evans to open up about the darkness around him,which never becomes bitterly melodramatic,thanks to the writers retaining a playfulness between Evans and Mallory. Crisply showing Andrews play Evans music,director John Cromwell and cinematographer Lucien Ballard looks into his eyes by engulfing the nightclubs in striking low- lighting which reflect Evans view. Stepping on the beach,Cromwell gives the romance a stylish elegance of overlapping images opening the love between Evans and Mallory,as the night song sings.
bobvend This film predates my birth by ten years, but after just seeing it on TCM, I had to weigh in. Overlong? ...well probably, and certainly contrived, given the plot. But somehow, it works, and does so beautifully.Both Andrews and Oberon do the best they can with their characters: he, a blind pianist playing in dives; she, a wealthy socialite who likes to go slumming. Enamoured by him, she feigns blindness in order to insinuate her way into his bitter existence. Both Hoagy Charmichael and stalwart Ethel Barrymore add comic bite and the requisite amount of wisdom as they lend their support to the ruse. And there are some cleaver twists which keep the game running just when one would think they would otherwise send it careening off the tracks. And it's hard for me to think of another film in which Merle Oberon was more beautiful.Set your reality check to its lowest setting and enjoy this classic sudser. And, if you're not a fan of classical music, this film just might change that!
dbdumonteil Bearing more than a distant resemblance with "magnificent obsession" ,Stahl's tear jerker of the thirties (remade by Douglas Sirk in the fifties )"Night Song " is less melodramatic ,but ,mainly in its second part ,drags on a little bit;the movie features two real life musicians :Arthur Rubinstein in the flesh ,and Hoagy Carmichael whose songs were covered even by Beatle George Harrison ("Baltimore Oriole"," Hong Hong Blues) and his influence shows in McCartney's song "baby's request" .Dana Andrews is reliable as ever ,and Madame Barrymore provides good support (dig the line when she tells her niece that all she wants is peace);Merle Oberon's playing is a bit emotionally remote ;the music is omnipresent ,classical stuff or Carmichael's "monkey song" .But the story itself is a bit derivative.
Michael This is an awful film as far as passive but discerning viewers are concerned. Oberon, in full histrionic mother-of-Roger-Moore's-left-eyebrow mode, plays a socialite who plays blind in order to woo a contumaciously sightless nightclub pianist.Cue lots of bordering-on-domestic-violence, but acceptable at the time, altercations; and gauzy close-ups of big tears rolling down Miss Oberon's (facial) cheeks.But in its favour the film, although potentially offensive in its approach, is sumptuous enough in its production values to wallow in forgivably. Plus, of course, Barrymore's cynical world-beater routine brings back from the edge any film in which it is deployed.

Similar Movies to Night Song