Rhapsody in Blue *** (1945, Robert Alda, Joan Leslie, Alexis Smith, Charles Coburn) – Classic Movie Review 10,527

Rhapsody in Blue (1945) was nominated for two Oscars: Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture (Ray Heindorf, Max Steiner) and Best Sound, Recording (Nathan Levinson). Rather surprisingly, Warner Bros entered it into the Cannes Film Festival in 1946 where it was a nominee for Grand Prize of the Festival. Warner Bros were quite pleased with themselves, advertising it as ‘Warners’ Crowning Glory!’

Director Irving Rapper’s 1945 musical Rhapsody in Blue stars Robert Alda (father of Alan Alda) in his finest hour as George Gershwin in this typical Forties Warner Bros biopic of the all-time great composer. They could hardly go wrong with the George Gershwin tunes, and joyfully Paul Whiteman’s Band offers a complete performance of the title music, while the other showstoppers are Oscar Levant as himself and the ‘American in Paris’ sequence.

This mostly fanciful musical toast to the life of the man and his music is extremely enjoyable if you pretend that it is the biography of a fictional tunesmith, but it does go astray with its tedious, entirely manufactured love story, with nice singer Julie Adams (Joan Leslie) and tough socialite Christine Gilbert (Alexis Smith) as the contrasting women in Alda’s life.

Forget the story, just sit back and listen to those wonderful songs: ‘I Got Rhythm’, ‘Fascinatin’ Rhythm’, ‘The Man I Love’, ‘Summertime’, ‘Stairway to Paradise’, ‘Someone to Watch over Me’.

Al Jolson, George White, Hazel Scott John B Hughes and Anne Brown also appear as themselves.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,527

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