Song of Surrender **½ (1949, Wanda Hendrix, Claude Rains, Macdonald Carey) – Classic Movie Review 12,157

Claude Rains again stars as a tyrant bullying his much younger wife, in the 1949 romantic melodrama Song of Surrender.

Director Mitchell Leisen’s slickly played 1949 Paramount Pictures black and white romantic melodrama Song of Surrender is written by Richard Maibaum, and stars Wanda Hendrix, Claude Rains, Macdonald Carey.

Macdonald Carey plays the young, handsome and wealthy New Yorker Bruce Edridge, who falls in love with 19-year-old farmer’s daughter Abigail (Wanda Hendrix), the uneducated wife of Elisha Hunt, the cultured 55-year-old curator of a small government museum (Claude Rains), in 1906 Connecticut. Abigail falls in love with Bruce too, so what to do? Will it be love or loyalty?

Song of Surrender is perhaps not sharp enough to involve fully, but the players, and Rains in particular as the older museum man, make full use of their underwritten roles.

It is based on a story by Ruth McKenney and Richard Bransten.

Also in the cast are Andrea King, Henry Hull, Elizabeth Patterson, Art Smith, Henry O’Neill, Eva Gabor, John Beal, Dan Tobin, Nicholas Joy, Peter Miles, Ray Walker, Gigi Perreau, Rafael Bennett, Clancy Cooper and Georgia Backus.

Song of Surrender is directed by Mitchell Leisen, runs 95 minutes, is released by Paramount Pictures, is written by Richard Maibaum, is shot by Daniel L Fapp, is produced by Richard Maibaum, is scored by Victor Young, and is designed by Hans Dreier and Henry Bumstead.

‘Song of Surrender’ (music by Victor Young, lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans) is sung by Buddy Clark.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,157

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