Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Micransix Crappy film

ShangLuda Admirable film.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 12 July 1947 by Loew's Inc. An MGM picture. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 9 October 1947. U.S. release: October 1947. U.K. release: 27 October 1947. Australian release: 28 August 1947. 10,788 feet. 120 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Robert Schumann's success as a composer seems assured when he marries the celebrated pianist Clara Wieck, despite her father's strenuous objections. COMMENT: Great music, marvelously performed (even by the normally lackluster MGM Symphony Orchestra), studding a story which although sometimes banal and always over-romanticized (and rather indifferently acted by Henreid and particularly Walker) maintains the interest. As usual, our complaint is that the scriptwriters would have made a more colorful and enthralling film out of the real facts instead of the half-truths here presented. For instance Professor Wieck opposed Schumann's marriage to Clara not only on the grounds of his lack of prospects but because of his mental instability and drunkenness. He had already attempted suicide in 1833. As for the acting, I think the producer should have switched the lead roles and cast Walker as Schumann, Henreid as Brahms. However, we have no complaints with the other players. Hepburn is perfect and her piano-playing looks so skillful, we can readily believe that she (instead of Rubinstein) is actually supplying the music. The movie's other stand-out performance is provided by Henry Daniell, who not only looks like Liszt, but conveys the vigor, the enthusiasm, the calculating passion that the great composer undoubtedly possessed. Although confined to a few early scenes, Leo G. Carroll makes a forceful impression as Clara's father. We like the way he sits behind her at the opening concert, whispering directions. Brown has directed the musical sequences with an agreeably fluid camera style that reinforces the baroque vastness of the concert hall sets, packed with costumed extras. Photography and other credits are likewise smoothly stylish in these musical recitals. By contrast, the domestic scenes are handled in a surprisingly pedestrian fashion. A few attempts to leaven them with slapstick comic relief seem both clumsy and inappropriate.A pity we don't see a lot more of Daniell, a lot less of Henreid and Walker. Never mind, the music and Hepburn's radiant acting and skillful miming, make up for a lot.OTHER VIEWS: Exquisite music in this talky but ingratiatingly acted (particularly by Hepburn and Daniell), superbly photographed and set, period comedy-drama. Hepburn gives a luminous performance. Even Walker is sincere and convincing, the costumes are A-1, the sets splendid with Brown and photographer Stradling making great use of them, the sound recording, while it has some unfortunately tinny moments, particularly during Liszt's recital, is of a higher standard than we might expect of MGM and a fine array of character players including Byron Foulger's court attendant, and Francis Pierlot's congratulating musician are on are on hand. Brown makes splendid use of Hans Peters' magnificent sets and the milling crowds of extras, even indulging in a few bravura effects like the dazzling dolly back through the miniature of the concert hall set (marvelous special effects by Warren Newcombe) right at the conclusion. Superbly atmospheric photography by Harry Stradling makes the sequences with dreary old Paul Henreid almost attractive to look at. Henreid is actually well cast as the lackluster Schumann who after his vigorous opening scenes in which he stands up to Leo G. Carroll's awesome martinet, spends the rest of the film being dominated by Miss Hepburn and feeling sorry for himself, through into effectiveness again in his concluding scene at the asylum (Clinton Sundberg as the doctor). This movie provides a feast for music lovers, and it's certainly good to get away from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's usual escapist fare.

MartinHafer As a retired history teacher, I am always skeptical of biopics-- particularly the older ones. Too often Hollywood played fast and loose with the truth and made real people 'more interesting' by completely fictionalizing much of their lives. Fortunately, "Song of Love" sticks closer to the truth than most...though you certainly cannot take what you see as gospel. So, yes, it appears that much of what you see (including Brahms falling in love with Mrs. Schumann) did happen....though maybe not exactly how and exactly when you see in the film--and, interestingly, the prologue of the film actually admits this!As far as the film goes, it's competently acted and looks lovely. Not surprisingly, it has a lot of music--perhaps too much to interest the average viewer. I like classical and romantic music but I found my attention waning during some of the longer musical interludes. Still, it is interesting and reasonably well made. Not at all a must-see but worth seeing.

Neil Doyle SONG OF LOVE is a tastefully romanticized biography of the Schumanns (Clara and Robert), as portrayed by KATHARINE HEPBURN and PAUL HENRIED, in a glossy tribute to their classical music. Their life changes when they take in a boarder/student by the name of Brahms, ROBERT WALKER, who immediately falls in love with Clara.While she makes a successful career as a pianist, her husband is less successful in pursuing his serious work as a composer. The story chronicles the highs and lows of their marriage as they struggle to raise seven or eight children while juggling their professional lives. Whether the romantic angle with Brahms falling deeply in love with Clara is accurate or not, I don't know. I'll have to read more about them to get the full picture, but it makes for an interesting romantic drama with lots of classical music, courtesy of Rubenstein at the piano.An unusual film for Katharine Hepburn, who does beautifully at the keyboard looking as though she's really playing the instrument, as well as Henry Daniell as Franz Liszt who is quite adept at the fingering.Good performances throughout, but I suspect that it's a film for classical music lovers only.

dschc535 First of all, Katherine Hepburn is badly miscast as Clara. She just can't be convincing as the devoted, selfless, rather smarmy wife that the writers have created.But the real weakness of the film is its shallowness in the face of a potentially great piece of drama. Schumann's bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder amounts to "Oh, oh, I have a headache" and the occasional angry word. Suicide? The word is used, but there's no sign of it in domestic scenes and when we see him in the mental hospital he's calm and subdued and smiling and optimistic. A superficial treatment. And Brahms is so upright and bourgeois - no sign of his gruff humour, his love of tweaking the noses of the establishment, no sign of his tortured attitude toward sex and women resulting from spending his youth playing piano in brothels. And was Clara's long concert career entirely about promoting Robert's music, or was she, in fact, a remarkable pianist who wanted a career for herself, a female pianist carving out a place for herself in a male world? Any sort of treatment of the lives of great artists is better than none, but this is a standard Hollywood, middle-of-the-road approach, particularly disappointing because the real story is so much more dramatic, so much more interesting, so much more human.