Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

foxwhowood It's supposed to be a biography of composer Jerome Kern, but this is really a musical revue. As such it's pretty good, but it's way too long. Kern wrote as LOT of music. Trying to sandwich in all the good tunes creates an endless succession of songs sung by an endless list of stars. Some of the performances are quite good, but the problem is the quantity, not the quality.The movie starts with a baffling misstep. Before the story even begins we're dumped cold into a recreation of highlights from Kern's biggest stage hit, "Show Boat." Though it's well done, the sequence is so long (18 minutes, I'm told) that had I been watching in a theater I'd have wondered if the projectionist had accidentally switched reels.When the story does get going it proves not worth waiting for. Having read a capsule review before seeing the film, I was prepared not to "take the biography too seriously." I wasn't prepared for a story that's 90% hogwash. The movie's central relationship, a lifelong friendship between Kern and mentor/arranger, James Hessler, is entirely fraudulent. The man never existed. Of course neither did Hessler's stagestruck daughter Sally, who grows up to feature in an annoying subplot. A few details are accidentally accurate. Mostly it's just a Hollywood screenplay, and not a very good one. The plot is hackneyed and choppy. The dialogue is often embarrassing.Robert Walker and Van Heflin sink with the script. Neither shows his real talent. Both are awkward and stiff. Maybe that's why the characters seem have an intense bromance going. I think the intent was to present a close, lasting friendship. But despite marrying the "love of his life," the screen Kern devotes more time and genuine emotion to Hessler than he ever does to his wife. I confess I had a hard time judging Walker fairly. In my head I identify him so closely to Bruno Antony in "Strangers on a Train" that I kept waiting for Kern to ask Hessler to murder his wife for him.The fact that both Walker and Heflin are young and handsome makes the going rough as the men age. The movie's old-age makeup comes straight from a high school play. In Heflin's case it consists mostly of covering his hair with increasingly thick applications of Christmas tree flocking. On his deathbed Heflin still looks young and hearty.Granting this picture is all hokum, I'd have liked to have seen SOME attention paid to history. When Kern's early impresario Charles Frohman goes down on the Lusitania, it's presented as an isolated incident. World War One apparently never happened.More significantly, Kern wrote melodies. He did not write lyrics. He enjoyed long working relationships with several major lyricists, and never claimed credit for their words. The movie suggests repeatedly that Kern wrote both words and music. In the movie Oscar Hammerstein, his most important collaborator, drops in to console a grieving Kern. He seems to be just another friend. No hint is given that this is the man who wrote the lyrics for "Show Boat," including the unforgettable "Old Man River." The omission may simplify the story, but it does a disservice to those whose lyrics played just as important a role as Kern's melodies in creating enduring songs.

vincentlynch-moonoi I avoided this film for all these years (I am 64 now), and only watched it now because I had just watched the Marilyn Miller biopic ("Look For The Silver Lining"), and so many mentioned Judy Garland's portrayal of Miller here as so much better than June Haver's in "Look For...". Well, let's get a couple of things straight. Judy Garland didn't look anything at all like Marilyn Miller, nor did she sound anything at all like Marilyn Miller. So this nonsense about how wonderful Garland's portrayal of Marilyn Miller in this film is just hogwash. I don't even think she sang "Look For The Silver Lining" very well here; she did a wonderful rendition of "Who" here, however. But for those of you who think she was so exquisite here, I guess you base your opinion on the one thing they had in common. Know what it was??? But now, back to this film. To be honest, the film was an excuse for MGM to develop another lavish musical...something that no other studio did so well. They came up with a darned good script, albeit another highly fictionalized biography of a famous entertainment figure. To be honest, I enjoyed the fictionalized story more than I did the production numbers...even though I admire Kern's work a great deal.Odd thing about the casting. I don't enjoy film performances by either Robert Walker or Van Heflin. Yet, in this film I thought they were both excellent! As to the negatives of casting -- Lucille Bremer's performance late in the film was very unconvincing.Now, the big controversy in the film was the concluding production number -- Frank Sinatra singing "Old Man River". If you're having a problem with that White guy singing a Black song...get over it. It was written by a White guy (the film is about that White composer). It was written for Broadway of that era...so it was mostly written for White audiences. But MOST importantly, music knows no race. Nat King Cole can interpret "Dance Ballerina, Dance", just as Frank Sinatra can interpret "Old Man River". A jazz musician can interpret a pop classic. Music belongs to everyone. And, incidentally, the best rendition of "Old Man River" I ever heard was Sinatra's interpretation on his Reprise album "The Concert Sinatra" from 1962. But even here, in 1946, Sinatra's performance of the number is strong and flawless (unless you obsess about a pigmentation problem). And just for the record, I generally disdain Sinatra recordings from before the mid-1950s.While not at the top of my list of MGM movie musicals and biopics, this is a good one. Recommended.

mike48128 Fully restored on TCM, the last 20 minutes are completely red with curiously red clouds. Is this a color statement like "South Pacific" or due to the aging of the master print? It almost looks like the "red-only" Technicolor film element. The "Hollywood" biography of legendary songwriter Jerome Kern. It starts out wonderful, with an almost half-hour mini-medley of the entire "Showboat" songbook, then starts to disappoint, with uneven musical performances, by a cavalcade of stars. Some pieces are brilliant, and some are almost boring, as not all the songs by Kern were created equal. Some songs are not presented in chronological order, which is a writing or editing error. As a biography, it seems tedious at times but charming as well. The English Garden sequence, (how Kern met his wife) was actually shot in America, and is rather well-done. A great cast, with good performances by June Allyson, Lucille Bremer, Kathryn Greyson, Van Heflin and many others. "Roberta" is danced by Cyd Charisse and Gower Champion. The most notable performances, in my opinion, are by Dinah Shore, Judy Garland, and Lena Horne. ("The "Leave it to Jane" number, by June Allyson, is very good, but the song is unmemorable.)The title tune, "Til the Clouds Roll by", is uninspiring, and mimics "Singin' in the Rain". The last 20 minutes, besides being all-red and faded-looking, are tedious, and the repeated song finale of "Old Man River" falls flat, as Frank Sinatra is not the right man to do justice to this monumental song. The film runs over 140 minutes, restored. Some "public domain" prints often ran only 120 minutes, entirely eliminating the 20-minute medley-of-hits finale.

museumofdave During the period of the late 1940's and 50's, Hollywood decide to treat the public to musical biopics, and because of censorship difficulties, demands from living relatives and ethnic considerations, most of them--whether dealing with Larry Hart, George Gershwin, Cole Porter or in this case, Jerome Kern, were whitewashed and innocuous life stories, skirting life episodes that might have given the films some genuine punch.While there are enough well-staged MGM candy-colored musical treats to keep this biopic afloat, this odd and frequently dull postwar musical features a dreadfully miscast (but popular in 1946) Robert Walker as the tunesmith Kern (Walker was also stuck in another film as Johannes Brahms);the fine actor Van Heflin acts as Kern's mentor (a person who never existed in real life) and there is far too much repetitive dialogue between the two men used to pad out the 137 minute running time.Definitely worth watching are Judy Garland (in brilliant joyous numbers staged by her husband at the time, Vincent Minnelli), June Allyson, Lucille Bremer, and other major singing stars in tiny cameos--a word of warning about the film print quality: years ago, someone at MGM forgot to renew the copyright, and this film drifted into public domain; many mediocre copies were produced with bad sound and poor color, usually included in bargain collections or close-out stores for a buck. There is now an official studio copy available, and because the Technicolor is such an important part of the film's impact, it is recommended you avoid the cheapies and get the real thing--and gape in wonder as a very young Frank Sinatra, clad in white tuxedo, standing alone on a giant white mountain of a column, sings "Old Man River." The mind boggles!