Bereamic Awesome Movie

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

richard-1787 This is a movie about a young man and his mother. She sacrifices everything so that he can study to be a classical pianist. He falls in love with big band music and decides to pursue that. His mother is heart-broken. In other words, one long, slow cliché that has been done better elsewhere.If that's all there were to this movie, I would say "forget it." But in between these scenes of melodrama there are live performances by some of the greatest classical musicians of the 1930s and 40s, indeed some of the greatest classical musicians of all times. Their performances, often truly great ones, are not wedged in in bits and pieces. Rather, we get to watch Arthur Rubinstein perform the entire Chopin Military Polonaise - and then de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance. We get to watch Jascha Heifitz perform the entire last movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto - and with what fire! We get to wonder as Leopold Stokowski completely distorts the tempo markings for an entire movement of a Tchaikovsky symphony, producing a series of remarkable moments that, for this listener, never came together as a whole - but still, what daring to pull Tchaikovsky apart like that. Stokowsky and Rubenstein both remind us of an era when classical musicians were also stage performers. Rubenstein bangs away at the keyboard with fantastic arm gestures. Stokowski is very clearly conscious of the angle from which he is being filmed. These are spectacular musicians devoted to the music, yes, but these are also colossal, theatrical egos.We get to see Ezio Pinza stand there in a costume that would be grounds for a law suit, yet sing Don Giovanni's Brindisi like no one else - and the opening of Il lascerato spirto, from Verdi's Simon Bocanegra, the only musical fragment in the movie.I saw this - most of it - on TCM. It is evidently available on DVD. I hope the DVD recognizes the dual nature of the movie and has the tracks arranged so that one can skip over the melodrama and just enjoy the remarkable musical performances.

Michael Morrison "Carnegie Hall" really deserves a 20 out of 10 stars simply because it is such a brilliant record of some of the greatest musical performers from about 1890 to about 1950.Most people reading this comment will not have had any other opportunity to see or hear in live performance such giants as Jan Peerce or Jascha Heifetz or, especially, the likes of Walter ("Good morning, my dear children") Damrosch.It would be easy to fill several paragraphs just listing and raving about those giants, those icons of great music, including Harry James and Vaughn Monroe, but I urge you to look at each name, follow the IMDb link and then Google each to learn about them.I must, though, mention the marvelous Marsha Hunt. For some function I don't remember, I was in her home when she was the Honorary Mayor of Sherman Oaks, around 1980, and have been an idolatrous fan ever since.She is recognized as a fine actress, but she deserved even more. She was also a beautiful woman, and probably never looked lovelier than in "Carnegie Hall." As her character ages, she goes gray, and her step slows and she dodders just a bit, just enough.It is, in short, a spell-binding characterization, a magnificent performance.I try not to be envious of people with more ability (which is most people) or more luck (which is nearly everyone) but I do envy Marsha Hunt for her opportunity, in this role, to interact with such musical heroes as Ezio Pinza and Artur Rodzinski.By the way, look for a very young Leonard Rose, who went on to well-deserved fame as one of the world's greatest cellists.One final note: The story was by the magnificent Seena Owen, probably best known for her role in "Intolerance." Maybe I shouldn't admit it, but I will: I applauded and cheered and, yes, cried at the beauty of this film, at the glory of it.I urge, strenuously urge you not to miss this "Carnegie Hall."Added 19 June 2015: "Carnegie Hall" is available at YouTube.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruvljAjzscg

Neil Doyle If you love classical music, CARNEGIE HALL will give you an earful. Some of the great performers of the time are seen in concert, such as Leopold Stokowski conducting Tchaikovsky's "Symphony in E Minor," Artur Rubenstein doing Chopin's "Polonaise" and "The Ritual Fire Dance" at the piano keyboard, Jascha Heifetz and his nimble fingers on the violin for Tchaikovsky's "Concerto for Violin," all performed brilliantly and making for a memorable soundtrack.But the story is a mawkish affair--MARSHA HUNT wanting her son to be a concert pianist who will some day play at Carnegie Hall, while he has other plans that include the world of modern music. When he joins the Vaughan Monroe band, mother and son sever their relationship and the rest of the tale treads the predictable movie line of many a backstage musical with no inspiration from the screenwriter.It doesn't help that Hunt's age make-up is as artificial as the thin plot that is supposed to hold all of this music together. WILLIAM PRINCE as her son makes almost no impression and MARTHA O'DRISCOLL is merely eye candy as the girlfriend who becomes his wife.If only the producers had a script worthy of all this music. RISE STEVENS does a nice job on an aria from "Carmen" and LILY PONS gets to do her famous "Bell Song," but neither of these acts are staged as more than "get up to the mike and sing." EZIO PINZA and JAN PEERCE are a bit luckier in the staging of their arias.Music lovers will certainly appreciate all the musical bits, some of which go on for quite a lengthy time while what little plot there is comes to a complete standstill.A feast for the ears, but not much can be said about the film itself which is more like a test of endurance over two hours and sixteen minutes of running time.Trivia note: All of the performing scenes were actually filmed at the newly refurbished Carnegie Hall.

Elgroovio I saw this film recently and couldn't quite get the point of it. In a two hour film made up almost entirely of music, a very weird and decidedly irrelevant plot can be found. But I'm not here to bin this film, some of the music is very engaging especially Arthur Rubinstein's energetic virtuoso piano playing, and it is interesting to see some classical music maestros perform. I recorded this film because I had heard that the fantastic trumpeter Harry James and his orchestra were in it, but what this review failed to mention was the fact that you have to wait a good two hours before James comes on, only to appear for about three minutes (which are, despite the long wait, quite good). No, "Carnegie Hall" is not a bad film, but you probably have to be well into the type of music played in it to truly enjoy watching this film. 7/10