Starring Kathryn Grayson, Merv Griffin, Joan Weldon, and Walter Abel
Directed by Gordon Douglas
Music and Lyrics by various
We continue our celebration of famous musical women with biographies of opera divas. Grace Moore is best-known today for the series of operettas and opera-based backstage films she made for Columbia in the mid-30's, but she began as a singer on the stage and in nightclubs. Her real ambition was to sing grand opera...and we see how she finally got there in this biography featuring another popular movie soprano. How does Grayson do with the life of the mercurial music star? Let's begin on the streets of Knoxville, Tennessee as the circus comes to town and find out...
The Story: Grace Moore (Grayson) has always had a beautiful voice...but it goes hand in hand with a rather nasty temper. She makes use of that temper to get herself singing lessons in Washington DC, where she meets chipper Buddy Nash (Griffin) at a nightclub. She manages to get a job singing there, but the combination of that and a poor teacher has damaged her vocal chords. A trip to a cabin in the country and not speaking for three months restores her voice, but it loses her Buddy, who marries before she returns.
Grace has far more luck with her career. She's hired as the understudy for star Marilyn Montgomery (Marie Windsor), then takes over her part when she's sick. That makes her a star on Broadway and nets her another boyfriend, Bryan Curtis (Douglas Dick). It doesn't impress the Metropolitan Opera, who find her too youthful and inexperienced for their stages. Moore, however, will become a star no matter what...even if she has to sacrifice her relationships to become the next great diva.
The Song and Dance: Whatever faults the movie had, it's not with the central performance. Grayson makes a wonderful Moore and does very well showing off her charm and her operatic temperament. She's equally adept at handling both the operatic solos like "The Jewel Song" from Manon and "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate." Walter Abel and Rosemary DeCamp are the only other cast members who make any impression as Grace's blow-hard father who just wants her to behave and her doting aunt.
Favorite Number: Little Grace (Noreen Corcocan) wows a crowd of black churchgoers with "In Dat Great Gitten' Up Morning." As an adult, she gets her first job singing "Ciribirin" onstage, only to be drowned out a man announcing the end of World War I. Grayson has a great time swinging her black beaded dress to "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate," but her family is shocked at the lewd song. Merv Griffin gets to show off his other talent besides producing game shows with the lovely ballad "I Kiss Your Hand, Madame."
"Oh Me, Oh My!" is one of Grace's numbers for the show she's supposed to be understudying. The other is the movie's sole major production number, "Time On My Hands." Grayson sings it as a bride before a ballerina in a magenta tutu and her partner in a tux take over, dancing off of what looks like a giant wedding cake. Grayson looks radiant in a frilly yellow gown and parasol for the romantic Irving Berlin ballad "Remember." The movie ends with Moore's Met triumph in the opera La Boheme, singing Mimi's solo "Si, mi chiamo Mimi."
What I Don't Like: Though the movie is actually pretty accurate biography-wise, you really don't get to know Moore as a person beyond her ambitions...and you only get half the story. Hollywood took note of her success with the Met and called her to make two operettas in 1930. She returned to movies in 1934, doing a successful series of operettas and opera backstagers at Columbia. Even after her film career ended, she continued appearing on records and in radio, then entertained the troops during World War II before dying in a plane crash in 1947. We see none of this, probably because Warners didn't own the material from her MGM and Columbia movies, and it might have been a lot more interesting than her dull attempts to get into the Met.
Casting is the other problem. Everyone else pales besides Grayson. Jeff Donnell and Joan Weldon are funny as her loyal buddies, but they really don't have much to do beyond a few gags. Griffin and Dick are so colorless in boring love interest roles, you understand why Griffin gave up any ideas of being a movie star and opted for hosting talk shows and producing game shows instead.
The Big Finale: Only for the most ardent fans of vintage opera, Grayson, or Moore. Everyone else is just advised to seek out Moore's films or recordings.
Home Media: Easily found on streaming and DVD, the latter from the Warner Archives.
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