Starring Eleanor Parker, Glenn Ford, Roger Moore, and Cecil Kellaway
Directed by Curtis Bernhardt
Music and Lyrics by various
Our next opera diva also came from humble beginnings...and faced even stronger obstacles on her way to the top. Marjorie Lawrence was a singer from Australia who wrote a best-selling autobiography in 1950 about how she managed to continue her career despite being stricken with polio. MGM initially wanted Greer Garson; Lana Turner was also suggested. By the time filming began in 1954, Garson was gone from MGM, and Parker now had the role. How well does she pull this off? Let's begin on a farm in Australia in 1932, just as Marjorie (Parker) is leaving for a singing contest that could launch her career, and find out...
The Story: After winning a trip to Paris to study voice in a contest, Marjorie boards with a family and nudges her way into lessons with renown teacher Madame Cecile Gilly (Ann Codee). She's ready to give up after a year, but Gilly manages to net her a role as Musetta in La Boheme. She's such a sensation, she's now in demand with all the major European and American opera companies. At this point, she also reconnects with and marries Dr. Thomas King (Ford), whom she initially met after her triumph as Musetta in Paris. Their marriage proves to be difficult, thanks to her traveling and his patients...until she's stricken with polio during a tour of South America in 1941. Now he's the only one who can convince her to start moving again and show her that she may be in a wheelchair, but her voice is hardly disabled.
The Song and Dance: Parker earned an Oscar nod as the determined, strong-willed soprano. She's as dynamic riding a galloping horse into the flames onstage as she is fighting with Ford over her inability to move. The scene where she's forced to move in order to stop a recording of her singing opera from playing is a bit over-the-top, but it's also an incredibly intense portrait of a woman learning that disability need not be an impediment to her life. Ford nearly matches her as the medical man who becomes both her biggest supporter and greatest critic when he tasks himself with restoring her mobility. MGM's unstinting production, including gorgeous costumes and accurate representations of the operas Lawrence appeared in, lends an air of class to the proceedings.
Favorite Number: Our first major sequence is a charming and lively "Musetta's Waltz" from La Boheme, with Parker resplendent in emerald green as she dances with the students onstage. The big "success montage" showing the shows Lawrence starred in includes he "Un bel di" aria from Madame Butterfly and a very sexy "Habenera" from Carmen. The Immolation Scene from the Gotterdamrung is far from Looney Tune nuttiness as Lawrence really does ride that horse right into the flames, making it as thrilling of a moment on film as it must have been in the theater.
Lawrence performs a touching "Over the Rainbow" for the soldiers recovering in a hospital, many of whom are in wheelchairs without the use of their limbs, too. Another montage of her singing for the troops ends with a rousing "Waltzing Matilda" for Australian soldiers on their way to the front. The film ends with Lawrence proving she can perform opera just as well standing up or sitting down with a thrilling sequence from Tristan und Isolde.
What I Don't Like: Once again, the biography is relatively accurate, but that doesn't make it any less cliched. This is your standard melodrama that hits a lot of the same beats as So This Is Love, including the disability that temporarily sets back the career and the triumphant performance/debut at the Met. This also has the same leading man problem. Roger Moore is supposed to be Lawrence's younger brother and manager who is grief-stricken when he's the one who suggested the fatal South American tour, but he's only slightly more interesting than Mel Griffin. Not to mention, he disappears for most of the movie after she comes down with polio, only to reappear in the last few minutes.
And while Eleanor Parker could sing and actually studied for the role, she was ultimately dubbed by another soprano, Eileen Farrell. Oh, and though the movie is supposed to take place in the 30's and 40's, you'd never know it from the costumes and hair. It looks like 1955 for the entire film.
The Big Finale: If you want to catch a biography of an opera diva, make it this one. Highly recommended for opera lovers, soap opera nuts, or fans of the stars.
Home Media: Once again, easily found on streaming and Warner Archives DVD.
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