Carnegie Hall

"Carnegie Hall" was made in 1947 and actually filmed in the newly refurbished Carnegie Hall. It's the story of a cleaner at the Hall named Nora (Marsha Hunt) who marries a pianist. He dies some time after they're married, and she's left to raise their son.

Nora exposes him, by taking him to Carnegie Hall, to all of the great music and musicians, and he studies piano. The plan is for him to grow up to be a concert pianist.

But he has other plans, and some of them include the pretty Ruth (Martha O'Driscoll), who sings with Vaughn Monroe. William Prince plays the adult son, and Frank McHugh plays an employee of the Hall who is a friend of Nora's.

This is one long movie with tons of beautiful music done by some of the great artists of the time: Leopold Stokowski conducting Tchaikovsky's "Symphony in E Minor," Artur Rubenstein (whom I saw play in concert while I was in high school) 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" - to name only a few.

Singers include Ezio Pinza singing parts of Don Giovanni, Rise Stevens singing "Pres des Ramparts de Sevilla" from Carmen, and Lily Pons, in an exquisite gown, doing the Bell Song from Lakme, her signature piece. Jan Peerce sings "O Solo Mio."

It's all wonderful, and a real feast for classic music lovers, but it isn't very cinematic, and the script is non-existent. It is great to have the musical performances preserved, however.

Marsha Hunt is still with us as of this writing, and she was a lovely actress, physically a cross between Jennifer Jones and Barbara Rush. She gets the usual Hollywood aging of gray hair, white powder and half a line on her face.

I suggest putting this on your DVR and fast-forwarding to the performances.

Enjoyed this film from the very beginning to the end with great artists performing in Carnegie Hall and a great story revolving around a woman named Nora Ryan, (Marsha Hunt) and her son named Tony Salerno, Jr., (William Prince) who wants her son to become a great concert pianist. Nora works in Carnegie Hall as a cleaning lady polishing brass rails and works hard to support her son who she loves very much. Tony grows up in Carnegie Hall and gets to meet all the famous conductors, singers and famous musicians. However, Tony wants to cut the apron strings of his mother and branches off to the modern dance bands and meets up with a very attractive gal which sort of breaks his mother's heart. If you like Classical Music and enjoy the great talents of super star talents from the past, this is the film for you. By the way, Marsha Hunt is approaching the age of 90 years and contributed a great deal of her acting ability to the Hollywood Silver Screen. Great film, don't miss it. Enjoy.

The film is a classical music field day. Some of the geat performers of the time are seen in concert-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 on the violin for Tchaikovsky's "Concerto for Violin," all performed brilliantly and making for a memorable soundtrack. It is interesting to see how this film tried to manipulate public taste with a mawkish love affair plot that carries the performances along. Opera great Lily Pons, Rise Stevens, Enzio Pinza, and Jan Peerce are featured in great arias. The performing scenes were filmed at the then newly refurbished Carnegie Hall.

"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

As an enormous lifelong fan of classical music and opera, 'Carnegie Hall' was seen with much eagerness and no hesitation. After seeing it, the film isn't great but there are also a lot of pleasures, though perhaps one will enjoy it better if a classical music fan to recognise the music and the stars involved.

The weakest element of 'Carnegie Hall' is the story, which is pure paper thin hokum, that gets increasingly thinner, draggy and credibility straining as the film progresses. Didn't mind that it was a clichéd kind of story, there are a lot of clichéd stories in films that still work, did mind that not much interesting was done with the non-musical side of the film. Also at times feels too stretched and over-stuffed with a few scenes that go on a bit longer than needed and with too many characters.

Contrived and flimsy scripting also works against 'Carnegie Hall', and most of the acting that's not the classical music stars is not particularly great with William Prince being rather anonymous. The sole exception in this regard is Marsha Hunt, who deserved better but brings authority, poignancy, firmness and dignity to her role.

Onto the positives now. Much of 'Carnegie Hall' looks very pleasing, with some lovely noir-like lighting, atmospheric use of shadows and mostly fluid and eye-catching camera work (if admittedly a bit static in the early parts). It's competently directed, informative, inspiring and moving in the best of its parts, and absolutely nothing can be said against Hunt.

Best of all are the music and the assemblage of classical music/operatic stars. On the musical side, 'Carnegie Hall' couldn't have been more blissful, with the opportunities of seeing and hearing Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mozart, Delibes et al. performed so brilliantly being a joy, and while this may not be good news to some to me it was lovely to have musical selections sizeable in length, these pieces are just too good to only have in snippet form so having it done the way it was here felt like the music and performers were being done justice.

With the stars, picking a favourite is impossible and you not only see them on top form but you see their personalities. The virtuosity of Artur Rubenstein in the Chopin, with those enigmatic flourishes, was a delight, and Jascha Heifetz plays Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto at a tempo that has never been done that fast and what sounds impossible is done with envious nimbleness by him with the intensity enough to make fires blaze. Leopold Stokowski features interestingly, again conducting Tchaikovsky in a way seldom done before, and 'Carnegie Hall' offers a rare chance of seeing Fritz Reiner and Walter Damrosch on film.

As an opera fanatic, particularly of the "golden age of opera", it was even more of a treat seeing fairly rare glimpses of Lily Pons, Rise Stevens and Ezio Pinza in their signature roles and arias of Lakme, Carmen and Don Giovanni respectively, all three sounding glorious.

Overall impressions are when it comes to the musical side of things 'Carnegie Hall' soars majestically. In the sections where story or drama is featured more, it does falter. 7/10 Bethany Cox