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Reviews320
mukava991's rating
"Deep in My Heart" is one of the last big-budget Hollywood studio composer biopics, this one being essentially an elaborate star-studded revue of songs held together by a slender and episodic outline of Sigmund Romberg's life, emphasizing the career-long conflict between his preference for operetta over jazz and his love of making and spending lots of money. Much of his output was fading from public memory even in 1954 when this film was released.
The enduring standards were and are "Will You Remember?" from MAYTIME, and two from NEW MOON - namely, "Lover Come Back to Me" and "Stouthearted Men." Standouts are the last minute and a half of "Will You Remember" sung by Jane Powell and Vic Damone (as good as they are, neither they nor the set piece can match the famous 1937 film version of MAYTIME starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy). The songs "It" and "One Alone" are gorgeously staged and danced, the first by Ann Miller and an ensemble that includes the statuesque Julie Newmar, the second by Cyd Charisse and James Mitchell.
Merle Oberon as Dorothy Donnelly, Romberg's sometime lyricist, looks scrumptious in a succession of gowns by Helen Rose. The casting of Walter Pidgeon as Florenz Ziegfeld and Paul Henried as J. J. Shubert is eye-rollingly inappropriate, but the producers were banking on Names over believability.
Helen Traubel does double duty, exuding motherly spirit and warmth as Mrs. Mueller, a café proprietress and supporter of Romberg who sings several songs. Jose Ferrer as Romberg starts out stiffly but eventually breaks out in a frenetic tour-de-force as he does a speed run of an entire musical show playing all the main characters himself to impress the woman he loves (Doe Avedon as Lilian Harris, Romberg's second wife; the first wife is missing from the script).
Now that one can stream the highlights of movies like this, audiences are spared the ordeal of sitting - and even fast-forwarding - through the tedious spoken scenes.
The enduring standards were and are "Will You Remember?" from MAYTIME, and two from NEW MOON - namely, "Lover Come Back to Me" and "Stouthearted Men." Standouts are the last minute and a half of "Will You Remember" sung by Jane Powell and Vic Damone (as good as they are, neither they nor the set piece can match the famous 1937 film version of MAYTIME starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy). The songs "It" and "One Alone" are gorgeously staged and danced, the first by Ann Miller and an ensemble that includes the statuesque Julie Newmar, the second by Cyd Charisse and James Mitchell.
Merle Oberon as Dorothy Donnelly, Romberg's sometime lyricist, looks scrumptious in a succession of gowns by Helen Rose. The casting of Walter Pidgeon as Florenz Ziegfeld and Paul Henried as J. J. Shubert is eye-rollingly inappropriate, but the producers were banking on Names over believability.
Helen Traubel does double duty, exuding motherly spirit and warmth as Mrs. Mueller, a café proprietress and supporter of Romberg who sings several songs. Jose Ferrer as Romberg starts out stiffly but eventually breaks out in a frenetic tour-de-force as he does a speed run of an entire musical show playing all the main characters himself to impress the woman he loves (Doe Avedon as Lilian Harris, Romberg's second wife; the first wife is missing from the script).
Now that one can stream the highlights of movies like this, audiences are spared the ordeal of sitting - and even fast-forwarding - through the tedious spoken scenes.
Perhaps "Challengers" was meant to be a cinematic meditation on the question of whether love and tennis are the same. Perhaps. In any case, "Challengers" definitely is a mish-mash of action (tennis games, lively soft-porn-level sexual foreplay and lusty food gobbling), male bonding (two young men, friends and rivals since pre-teen years) and love triangle (the men are involved with a female tennis player). There are too many confusing flashbacks as well as overlapping flashback-and-forths and way too many slow-motion sequences. Pounding electro-percussion accompanies much of this mess for no apparent reason except perhaps to hypnotize the viewer into staying awake. The tennis sequences are well edited and intense. All three lead players look like they could be pro players. The camera loves Josh O'Connor and certainly doesn't dislike his co-stars, but he's the standout, just as he was in the episodes of "The Crown" wherein he played young Prince Charles.
