Wonderful Movie

Best movie ever!

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

An early attempt for success in film operetta as the rival to Jeanette MacDonald didn't work well for opera diva Grace Moore ended quickly thanks to the public aversion to musicals, but the sudden success of movie musicals brought her back with a fair amount of critical acclaim and public interest. She lightened up her personality, mixing in daffy comedy with the Aria's, even tossing in a few standards and popular novelty songs. Here, she's a seemingly high strung diva who finds out that she does have a sense of fun, finding romance with agent Melvyn Douglas who is trying to get her to honor an engagement in Argentina that she's reneged on for a vacation in France. With his verve, she might change her plans, but not without some issues along the way.There's an "oom pah pah" feeling to a few of the non opera songs she gets to sing that will surely have your feet tapping. She has a sparkling personality and a dazzling smile to boot, certainly no iron butterfly (Jeanette MacDonald's nickname). In fact, she was the one to score an Old nomination for "One Night of Love" while MacDonald was overlooked for her big success, "The Merry Widow". Douglas, so serious looking, proved that he was not what he seemed as a leading man in screwball comedy. Then there's Helen Westley as her mentor, a retired opera star embittered by age yet only gruff on the outside, suddenly young again when Douglas makes up a story simply to get on her good side. Westley has several hysterical exchanges with Moore's wisecracking maid, played with a witchy know how by the scene stealing Margaret Hamilton who gets a laugh simply by commenting on her own appearance. In a brief drunk scene, she's an absolute hoot.This is the type of film that becomes charming simply because it is not as highbrow as one would expect, made with the intention of bringing classical music to the masses in an appealing way. When Moore sings a famous aria from "La Traviata", Douglas's pal, Stuart Erwin, comments on his curiosity as to why it is so often revived when it was originally a flop. Moore shows just how lovely she is when she sings the title song. It's a shame that she only made a handful of film's, as she has the look and charm of Irene Dunne, the voice of an angel, and a fantastic wardrobe. Coming from Columbia (at the time considered a poverty row studio), this has all the elegance of the majors, and is done tastefully without becoming long haired and uppity.

Fun cast of characters, even if the plot is a smidge thin. Margaret Hamilton, of course, is the straight talking' maid, who talks back to everyone. Matronly Helen Westley is the guardian and agent for singer Elsa Terry (opera singer Grace Moore). Melvyn Douglas and Stuart Erwin claim to have a contract requiring Elsa to perform in Buenos Aires, but she she wants to go sing in Paris. I personally could have done without all the opera numbers, but this was 1937, and they still thought each film needed singing entertainment. The awesome Franklin Pangborn is in here, even if only for a line or two. This one DOES work as a comedy... lots of fun lines, double entendres, and banter. The only way to approach this is to go get a sandwich every time they perform the opera numbers; those long, yawners really bring things to a halt. Fun to watch, in spite of that. Directed by Ed Griffith. Sadly, Grace Moore would only make one more film after this... she died in a terrible plane crash in 1944.

If you only know Grace Moore from *One Night of Love*, you should definitely check out this movie. It's much better.First, Moore is much more at ease acting in front of the camera. In ONOL she often delivered her lines in a stilted way. Here, she is much more natural, and really seems to be having fun.Second, and even though they do repeat it rather often, this movie does have a dynamite title song, which bears repeated listening.Third, Moore is surrounded by a uniformly fine cast, starting with Melvyn Douglas and including Stu Erwin, Helen Westley, and Margaret Hamilton (yes, the Wicked Witch of the West, two years before TWOO), all in top form.The weak point, frankly, is the three fully-staged operatic scenes. The first and the third, from Traviata Act I and the Love Duet from the end of the first act of Madama Butterfly, are well-performed. (The middle one, the Act III finale from Martha, is not as well done.) The problem is that they just sit there, and are not in any way integrated into the plot. If you think of a movie like Moonstruck, which does such a magnificent job of incorporating various scenes from La Boheme into its plot, you have some idea of what could have been done. Instead, the action just stops, and the audience is asked to sit back, watch, and listen, not even as if they were at the opera, because we are given no idea whatsoever of what is going on in those three scenes. If scenes had been chosen with situations similar to what was going on in the movie, and if the parallels had been indicated, the operatic scenes wouldn't have acted as dead weights in what is otherwise a nicely paced romantic comedy. (There is some effort to incorporate the scene from Manon into the action, but not much.) Still, don't let those three scenes keep you away. Moore comes off as vivacious and fun-loving, Douglas is his usual easy-going and agreeable self. The result is an enjoyable 90 or so minutes.---------------------I watched this again on TCM. The cast is really very good, a group of first-rate comedians. It's a shame the material isn't up to the level of their talent. Every now and then it seems about to take off and become a good comedy, but then it falls flat again.I still feel that the operatic numbers slow things down. Only the Butterfly duet is really well done. On the other hand, Moore does a great job with the few pop numbers she is given. She should have sung more popular numbers and cut back on the opera.

Grace Moore and Melvyn Douglas star in "I'll Take Romance," a 1937 musical film that has good support from Stuart Erwin and Margaret Hamilton.Moore plays Elsa Terry, an opera star who has two engagements at the same time, one in Paris and one in Buenos Aires. Paris is the more lucrative offer, so she decides to blow off Buenos Aires. An agent (Douglas) has the job of getting her down South America way, so he romances her. They both fall in love for real.This was Grace Moore's second-last film. She had a lovely voice, fuller than Jeannette MacDonald's. Unfortunately, the way female singers were taught in those days gave them a fluttery, back-sounding quality at the top and, due to not a lot of mixing of middle and chest voice, their middle voices were not as rich as they could have been. To think that a light, lyric voice like either MacDonald's or Moore's would attempt Tosca today is preposterous - yet both these women, with fragile instruments, actually did the role. In this film, Moore also takes on Madame Butterfly, another role that would never go to her today. Moore was a famous Mimi, a straight lyric soprano role, in La Boheme. A good deal of her singing in this film is quite beautiful.The highlight of "I'll Take Romance" is the beautiful title song performed by Moore. She also sings from Manon, Traviata, and Martha, Martha being an opera no longer in standard repertoire. The character is singing at the old Met. Impressively, the segments from Traviata and Martha are fully staged and costumed and done without cuts. The American tenor Frank Forrest sings with Moore in Butterfly, and he has a beautiful voice.This is supposed to be a screwball comedy. Moore was an easy, natural actress with no particular gift for comedy or screwball, so it doesn't quite come off. Melvyn Douglas sails through the film as he always did in these light leading man roles, and no one ever realized what an absolutely magnificent actor he was until the 1960s. Stuart Erwin and Margaret Hamilton are both very funny.The extremely popular Moore had just finished a concert in Demark before 4000 people and was en route to Sweden when the plane crashed and killed her. She was 49 and had been out of films for eight years and concentrating on concert and USO work. She helped to popularize opera in the U.S. and paved the way for later stars like Mario Lanza and Kathryn Grayson.