Some things I liked some I did not.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Usually, musical biopics from the 1940s and 1950s aren't that great, but Words and Music isn't that bad. It's the history of the partnership between Richard Rodgers, played by Tom Drake, and Lorenz Hart, played by Mickey Rooney. It's chalk-full of over a dozen of their greatest hits, sung by a dozen different stars, so not only is it a treat for audiences to see an all-star cast together in one movie, but it's a sweet way for many singers to honor their legacy.Most of the movie focuses on Mickey Rooney, and if his characterization was true-to-life, I feel very sorry for Larry Hart, who had a sad and lonely life. If it weren't for the lovely songs, the movie might feel like too much of a downer. But, when Mickey Rooney sings "Manhattan," Judy Garland joins him for "I Wish I Were in Love Again," and Lena Horne performs "The Lady Is a Tramp" and "Where or When," it's hard to feel sad for very long.An extra treat is the dance number "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," from the musical On Your Toes performed on an elaborate stage set by Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen. I'm a huge fan of both, and while I've always thought Vera-Ellen was beautiful, cute, and had an incredible figure, she wasn't really known for having much sex appeal. In this dance number, she must have taken lessons from Gene, because they are absolutely smoldering together. Her costume almost shows too much, and they seem connected by an invisible string as they give audiences a particularly boundary-pushing dance. Robert Alton's choreography more than makes up for June Allyson's song-I think the person who first told her she could sing must have been deaf-"Thou Swell."

Larry Hart (Mickey Rooney) is an energetic songwriter. Herb Fields brings in Richard Rodgers to play his song and becomes his writing partner. The movie is told through Rodgers' eyes. Hart is taken with singer Peggy Lorgan McNeil. Fields gains some success and brings in his friends for a new Broadway show. Rodgers proposes to older leading actress Joyce Harmon but she turns him down.This is a fictionalized account of the music writing duo. The real story is nowhere to be found and shouldn't be expected especially during that era. It does feel scattered following both guys. Tom Drake doesn't have quite the charisma. Rooney and Garland have a final pairing. It's old fashion including the musical performances. At least, it has the songs. It's old fashion in many different ways.

Anyone approaching this film as anything other than a gorgeous wallow through some of the most gossamer light verse welded seamlessly to soaring melodies will be bitterly disappointed. People who admire literate lyrics can't help but place Larry Hart in a three-way tie with Cole Porter and Frank Loesser with Johnny Mercer, Yip Harburg, Noel Coward snapping at their heels and Words and Music lays on a fair sampling of work of a tortured genius although inevitable as many again would still have failed to sate. In terms of actual biographical data however, forget it, there's hardly one authentic fact from beginning to end. This, of course, paves the way for interesting discussion; on the one hand is the school that says, 'look, you've got the songs, what more do you want', on the other 'maybe two per cent of FACT isn't too much to ask for'. I would argue that both schools have been well served elsewhere; I personally own several biographies and/or other works on both Hart alone and Rodgers and Hart and beginning arguably with Ella Fitzgerald's Rodgers and Hart Songbook there are countless albums devoted to the duo. So, what of the film? Presumably Michey Rooney was a shoo-in to play Hart on the basis that like Hart he was both short and musical. Tom Drake is also a good choice to portray Rodgers who, in real life was as colorless as Drake paints him here. This leaves more or less the music and even with great numbers - Isn't It Romantic, Bewitched, My Romance, Little Girl Blue etc conspicuous by their absence it's still a great collection.

It's not that I don't like music or musicals. Instead, I adore Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and more great artists like them. I also like biopics and the stars they're about, like Cole Porter in 'Delovely' and Glenn Miller in 'The Glenn Miller Story'. But I must confess I hated this version of the lives of Rogers and Hart.Why? Because it's a typical Hollywood-movie. The characters aren't real human beings, even though they'd have to. When a person is sad in the life story of the two music- and lyric writers, or when damnation strikes, it seems like the director wants that his audience feels sad too. But please, we can only feel sad when we feel sad. When do we feel sad? When we identify ourselves with the characters. But here that is impossible, because this isn't a realistic approach: each character is just a figure with one dimension. Mulder and Scully would have more problems to get real life in this production than to prove Alien lifeforms exist.Sweet Hollywood, I love you, but please, if you make a movie about my life, mix the good with the bad and a bit of movie magic, because here it was only bad or good. No, I will never see this monstrous picture again.