Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

zif ofoz Pure classic melodrama at it's best! Joan Crawford and John Garfield star in their most shinning roles as actors.The plot and storyline is very difficult to make entertaining in this movie but these two professionals bring it to life. And Oscar Levant is the icing on the cake. By all means if you get a chance to see this movie with these two Hollywood legendary actors and a script that is in any description more than brilliant - please watch it.A rare treat for classic Hollywood movie fans.

Alana Fu BEAUTIFULLY shot. Great musical performances. Witty and humorous lines, Oscar Levant got some pretty good one-liners. Joan Crawfords was gorgeous as ever! Even though her eyebrows were a little too thick (I find her eyebrows perfect in A Woman's Face). However the story doesn't really hold up, nor does the characters. Especially the mother? probably the worst mother on earth. Gina? Her role is very ineffective. Helen? I felt this role was too weak for Crawford, also very unreasonable. The acting was also stiff and contrived. John Garfield as a violinist wasn't convincing to me (maybe he's too deadpan?), and there's no chemistry between him and Crawford.

dougdoepke A young man from the slums makes his way into a web of high society using his talents as a violin virtuoso.The film's an apex of studio movie-making. 40's soap opera simply doesn't come any slicker than this. The black and white photography is rich, glossy, and superb, the luminescent glow behind Crawford's close-ups almost transforming this middle-aged warhorse into a fallen madonna. The screenplay anticipates Garfield's role in "Body and Soul" as he claws his way up from poverty using a bowstring instead of fists. For a tough guy, we still believe in his poetic soul and no one from that era was better at combining the two. Then too, no film has communicated an on-screen classical score more effectively than this, as Crawford is alternately beguiled, seduced, and overwhelmed by pulsating strains from the great composers. And, of course, there's that all-time smashing finale so lushly romantic, I'm still picking seaweed from my hair. I'm glad the screenplay gives an obscure contract player like Ruth Nelson a chance to show her thespic talents. Her face-off with Crawford over the direction of Garfield's affections is an epic one, though she's probably a shade too aristocratic for the long-suffering motherly role. Moreover, there are the many memorable throw-away lines, one could expect from a stellar cast that includes Hollywood's master cynic, the mordant Oscar Levant. In fact, his self- effacing personality and casual witticisms are so distractively entertaining, they threaten to undo the entire melodrama. For fans of Levant, it's a showcase, and I wouldn't be surprised if many of those sarcasms were his own. (If only the writers could have dispensed with that dreary stereotype of the wholesome-girl-in-waiting, this time the fresh-faced Peggy Knudsen.) With this film, director Negulesco proves he could spread the soap suds as smoothly as a Douglas Sirk or a John M. Stahl. Without a doubt, this is the Hollywood dream-factory hitting on all eight cylinders in ways that just don't happen anymore.

Bolesroor Good gravy... they don't make them like this anymore. "Humoresque" is a dark, melodramatic romance in which everything is played as Grand Tragedy, going so far over the top that it becomes difficult to take seriously. John Garfield is Paul Boray, the violinist so gifted that he can bring every woman in his life to tears with the beauty of his solos. Joan Crawford is Helen, the nearsighted socialite in an open marriage who lusts after Paul's artistic fruits.The movie opens with a flashback: a young John Garfield has a choice between a violin and a baseball bat... being a tortured artist at heart, he grabs the fiddle and his life is never the same. Helen manipulates Paul into falling in love with her under the pretense of advancing his career. Garfield's best buddy is an obnoxious wise-cracking pianist who has a "witty" comeback for every occasion: "Call me back in an hour- I should be asleep by then."If this was a silent movie it would have been a smash… John Garfield's face is perfect: good-looking, almost brutish, with a touch of pain and sadness in his eyes that makes him a fascinating screen presence. And Joan Crawford's face was perfect here, too: halfway between the big-eyed beauty that she was and the menacing monster she would become. If the film consisted of only extreme close-ups of the two leads it would have been a wonderfully rich story... instead we get extended sequences featuring maudlin violin music and pages and pages of stylized dialogue.The unforgettable finale- featuring the longest suicide in film history- is Joan Crawford at her hammy best. As John Garfield gives his greatest stage performance Joan is at their beach house, alone and despondent, heartbroken and inconsolable, and the violin music swells as we cut back and forth between the concert and Joan's snail-paced walk into the ocean. She pauses every few moments for a close-up, enormous eyebrows arched above her contorted features. Slowly... slowly... she makes her way into the surf, which seems to sense her pain and swallow her instantly. Alas, she is gone, and Garfield learns a valuable, tragic life lesson: The violin is the instrument of doomed romance. Deeeep...Next time take the baseball bat.GRADE: B-