Good start, but then it gets ruined

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This is a very good biopic of the great American composer, George Gershwin, who has left his mark on the musical world everywhere. Gershwin (1898-1937), was born Jacob Gershowitz in New York City. Like many other musical geniuses, he died young. Mozart (1756-1791) was just 35 years old when he died. Franz Schubert (1779-1828) was just 31. Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) died at 39. And the just blossoming American, Louis Chauvin (1881-1908) died at 27. Gershwin was just 38 when he died. And, as those before him born with a natural genius for music, Gershwin left a treasure trove of great music to be enjoyed by all throughout the ages. How much more Gershwin, and the others who died so young might have contributed can't be known. But their musical legacy can be enjoyed and appreciated for all time. This film was made just seven years after Gershwin's death. It's notable for including some actual artists and friends who loomed large in Gershwin's professional life. Among those playing themselves are pianist, composer and actor Oscar Levant, and big band leader and composer Paul Whiteman. And Al Jolson reprises his first performance of "Swanee" in black face that made it a great hit and catapulted Gershwin's career.Oscar Levant gives a light touch to the film with his witty dialog in places. And the film has some scenes with some other great talents. The tap dancer in Remick's music store is Gower Champion who would become one of the great dancers and choreographers of Broadway. Hazel Scott is the talented musician who plays the piano and sings when Gershwin goes to dinner in Paris. Al Gallodoro is the jazz clarinetist who plays the eerie opening to "Rhapsody in Blue." This film is appropriately named for Gershwin's best-known and most clearly American musical work, "Rhapsody in Blue." Robert Alda, who resembles Gershwin in appearance, played him in this film. It was Alda's screen debut, and he does a marvelous job. He gives just the right amount of self-pride to the composer who was known to be very self-centered, but also very likable. Alda was a versatile actor who won a Tony on Broadway. This is a considerably fictitious portrayal about Gershwin's personal life and women. The romances shown here are fictional. Gershwin had a long affair with a fellow composer, Kay Swift. She was married for the first seven years and then divorced her husband to be closer to Gershwin. But they never married. Gershwin discussed his music with her and looked to her for advice. She remained his close companion until his death in 1937. Professor Franck in this film (played by Albert Bassermann) is probably based mostly on Charles Hambitzer. He mentored Gershwin for eight years (ages 12 to 20) until Hambitzer died in 1918. He coaxed Gershwin to study and play the European composers. These aspects are covered in the film. It also shows George getting his start plugging songs in a music store. But it doesn't allude to his quitting school at age 15. Gershwin's death was treated as a simple collapse in the movie. In reality, he had been suffering severe headaches since early in 1938. He had mood swings and bouts when he was incoherent. Some thought he was becoming hysterical. Only at the last did doctors think he might have a brain tumor. They operated and removed a large tumor, but he didn't recover from the surgery. Gershwin was versatile in his musical genius. He composed "Rhapsody in Blue" at age 25. His opera, "Porgy and Bess," is considered the quintessential American opera. He composed the music for a Broadway show, "Of Thee I Sing," that won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his brother, Ira, and George Kauffman and Morrie Ryskind in 1931. His compositions spanned the range of music from ballads to waltzes, and included blues, classical, country, jazz, pops, and South American. With his brother Ira, George Gershwin has left a plethora of memorable music, much of it from the stage musicals that he wrote. His most popular songs, still played and sung around the world well into the 21st century, include "Swanee," "I Got Rhythm," "Love is Here to Stay," "Summertime," "Someone to Watch Over," "Nice Work if You Can Get It," and "The Man I Love." Others are, "They Can't Take That Away," "Embraceable You," "S Wonderful," "A Foggy Day," "Somebody Loves Me," "Oh, Lady be Good," "Strike Up the Band," "Love Walked In," "Funny Face," and "That Certain Feeling."What this movie leaves out or glosses over in his life is more than made up for in the music. It has a performance of the full score of Rhapsody in Blue. It has great scenes and numbers from "Porgy and Bess." It has highlights from some of his Broadway musicals. And, it has numerous scenes with some of the big hit tunes that most everyone will recognize a century or more later. If for no other reason, it's worthwhile to see this film just to enjoy Gershwin's wonderful music.

It seems hard to believe that the same studio that made Yankee Doodle Dandy just a year before, Warner Brothers, could then have made this very disappointing picture. The script for YDD was sometimes hackneyed yes,, but it was still often a great film, in large part because of the brilliant direction of Michael Curtiz, one of Hollywood's great directors, someone who could do so many things so well, from The Adventures of Robin Hood and the Seahawk to Casablanca to YDD, and the electric performance of James Cagney.Both those elements, or their equivalent, are lacking here. Irving Rapper's direction goes nowhere, and Robert Alda, in his first feature-length motion picture, proves to be a very poor actor. The supporting cast is of no help.Part of that problem lies in the script, which is full of biopic clichés. Still, Cagney rose above similar clichés to create a truly living character in YDD. After watching this movie and Alda's performance in it, I have no sense of what Gershwin was like. Yes, I know the script has a lot of invention, and goes wide of the unromantic reality of Gershwin's real life. But so, as I recall, does the script of YDD, and still, Cagney created a living character out of the results. Alda, with evidently no real support from his director, does not.Yet this movie is not a total failure, by any means. If the script and acting are strictly second rate, below Warner Brothers' best, some of the musical numbers are pure magic. Al Jolson was 25 years older in this picture than when he first performed Swanee on Broadway, but he still makes the number come alive with his voice in an astounding fashion, putting Joan Leslie's performance of the number a little earlier in the movie to shame. Similarly, the performance of Blue Monday Blues is pure magic. Watching Paul Whiteman conducting the first, smaller version of Rhapsody in Blue is also fascinating: there is a LOT of playing with the tempo markings, which must have been how he performed it with Gershwin back in 1924 when they premiered it at Aeolian Hall. It would have been great had they allowed Anne Brown, the original Bess, to perform some of Bess's music, but they give her Summertime, which she would not have sung in the original production of Porgy and Bess. Whiteman and Oscar Levant are interesting doing the Concerto in F, but we don't get to hear a lot of it.It is strange to see Levant in the final scenes of the movie, when Gershwin is in his last days. If Levant was actually in the real- life equivalent of those scenes, it must have been very strange for him to re-enact the last days of the composer's life, especially the last day, when he leaves to go back to New York to perform the Concerto in F with Damrosch just hours before the composer's death.In short, you can skip all the dialogue scenes, as they are poorly acted, poorly written, and not necessarily reliable. On the other hand, some of the musical numbers should be preserved forever, as they are both historical and remarkable.--------------------Some of what I wrote above was unnecessarily harsh. Yes, by far the most important parts of this movie, as in *Yankee Doodle Dandy*, are the musical numbers, especially those performed by those who were connected with the original performances.But it is also interesting to see how this movie repeatedly tries to present Gershwin as Warner Brothers had presented Cohan the year before: as not just a great composer, but as someone who was trying to give voice to the nation. I don't think anyone today would dare to try that with a modern musician, but neither do I think Warner's was wrong in making the attempt.On a second viewing, Robert Alda is not so bad as Gershwin. It remains true, however, that neither he nor the script ever really makes us understand what made Gershwin tick. There are strands that are introduced along those lines that could have been developed: an attempt to erase the boundaries between classical and popular music, the importance of Black music and culture in American music, etc., but they are never carried out. This movie is way too long; it would have been better had all the scenes with Joan Leslie and Alexis Smith been cut, as beautiful as Smith is in this movie. Still, there is a lot of value here. It merits an attentive viewing.

When I found this on YouTube in a Spanish-dubbed version without English subtitles, I first looked to see if an English-recorded one was on the site. Since there wasn't one, I decided to view the Spanish one especially since I knew at least the songs would stay in the original language no matter what foreign version occurs of whatever American musical movie made. With that said, while I didn't completely understand what was being spoken by the characters, the way some of the feelings was visualized did clue me in what was happening. Anyway, I at least loved most of the musical sequences especially when Ms. Joan Leslie showed her legs in a couple of her numbers. And seeing Robert Alda as George Gershwin convincingly looking like he's actually playing the piano-even though it's possible it's actually Oscar Levant's hands being spliced on screen when Alda's full body shot is shown-was also a pleasure to watch. I also liked Hazel Scott's singing of some of Gershwin's tunes though I didn't like it when she was partly cut during some of her numbers for some dialogue between Alda and other leading lady Alexis Smith. I also liked the "Blue Monday" sequence especially when the players seemed like white performers authentically having shaded skin in comparison to the Al Jolson "Swanee" number where he once again had the now-offensive burnt cork look that would now be appalling to African-Americans watching this today. In summary, the language barrier didn't ruin my enjoyment of the drama-fictionalized though it was-that occurred when depicting George Gershwin's life and besides, the music in the original English language was more than enough to carry my enjoyment through.

I love Robert Alda. I love George Gershwin. Yet, this was one of the most embarrassing clunkers of a biopic I have ever seen. And yet it is indispensable for the appearance and piano playing of the great Oscar Levant and the full performances of great Gershwin music.Gershwin's last days and his illness were as overwrought and melodramatic as cinematic deaths can be.So why am I even taking the time to add these comments? Because despite everything, it was absolutely riveting as a curiosity. And unlike most movie musicals where an actor does not actually play the piano, Oscar Levant -- Gershwin interpreter extraodinaire -- was there.