Yes, Robert Walker was not a great Jerome Kern and Van Heflin was completely fictional, and yes, the story line was tedious and sappy, but...all those incredible stars in one movie (despite some of the greatest ones like Kally and Astaire and Robeson being left out) in some of the most beautiful songs ever written (some of the greatest ones likewise also left out like "The Way You Look Tonight") just coming at you one after the other in sumptuous settings: what an unrepeatable and irreproducible gem of a movie! And the fact that Kern missed the Lusitania by oversleeping was replaced by a more dramatic plot line that had him trying unsuccessfully to catch that boat (We're all so glad he didn't!) and follow Frohman to England I thought was an actual dramatic improvement on what really happened.
But you know, to me the most telling aspect of the whole movie which reflected so perfectly American mores and prejudices of the day was the fact that nowhere in the movie was the fact alluded to that Jerome Kern was---Jewish! And to this day none of your 40 other reviewers betrayed an awareness of this fact. The Jewish movie studio heads like Louis B. Mayer and Arthur Freed were not about to compromise the success of their glorious effort by turning any portion of the movie-going public off. But that thick American anti-Semitism of the day was about to receive its rebuke just a few seasons later in Gregory Peck's Gentlemen's Agreement.
An incredible video has just been released by National Public Television on the Jewish heritage in the American popular musical. And astonishing as it is to realize that with the exception of George M. Cohan and Victor Herbert (Irish), Cole Porter (Christian denomination?) and Andrew Lloyd Weber (?) all the great Broadway composers and lyricists from Jerome Kern to Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim have indeed been Jewish and Jerome Kern was one of the greatest of them all. But this movie did its best to keep all that a secret (and succeeded.)
But you know, to me the most telling aspect of the whole movie which reflected so perfectly American mores and prejudices of the day was the fact that nowhere in the movie was the fact alluded to that Jerome Kern was---Jewish! And to this day none of your 40 other reviewers betrayed an awareness of this fact. The Jewish movie studio heads like Louis B. Mayer and Arthur Freed were not about to compromise the success of their glorious effort by turning any portion of the movie-going public off. But that thick American anti-Semitism of the day was about to receive its rebuke just a few seasons later in Gregory Peck's Gentlemen's Agreement.
An incredible video has just been released by National Public Television on the Jewish heritage in the American popular musical. And astonishing as it is to realize that with the exception of George M. Cohan and Victor Herbert (Irish), Cole Porter (Christian denomination?) and Andrew Lloyd Weber (?) all the great Broadway composers and lyricists from Jerome Kern to Leonard Bernstein to Stephen Sondheim have indeed been Jewish and Jerome Kern was one of the greatest of them all. But this movie did its best to keep all that a secret (and succeeded.)
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