The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I don't remember Eddy Duchin, but I remember his son, Peter. When I was a kid, their style of pop still retained some popularity.Tyrone Power Jr might have been a pretty face, but he was rarely (if ever) accused of being a poor actor. You'd never know it from this film. When he gets angry or upset, he so overdoes it that you can't believe the director didn't ask him to tone it down.Tyrone Power Sr gave an even worse performance in "The Big Trail". I would like to think Jr was trying to carry on the tradition, to make up for his dad not having completed a second sound film. (He died of a heart attack on the set of "The Miracle Man" in 1931.)"The Eddy Duchin Story" is so emotionally overwrought that it's hard to keep a straight face. As they say, "There's a not a wet eye in the house."

TYRONE POWER does a remarkably convincing job at the keyboard and the camera seems to linger on his dexterity at the piano (on a dummy keyboard, of course) while the magic of Carmen Cavallaro takes over on the soundtrack. He's excellent as the brash and overly eager young piano player who eventually makes bigtime as a popular pianist, marries and loses his sweetheart, KIM NOVAK, with whom he has a young son who at first resents him after Power's desertion, then reunites before Duchin's untimely death from leukemia. That's the plot, in a nutshell, but it's the sparkling music that counts.The richly textured Technicolor photography of Manhattan and its settings evoke the time and period perfectly. I found KIM NOVAK's performance artificial and disturbingly unreal--as though she were affecting a series of poses--while Power is completely natural and appealing opposite her. Novak's performance here is a far cry from her work as Madge in PICNIC. The mood of the film becomes somber after her death and Power's decision to leave the country on tour, leaving his baby son behind. The conflict between Duchin and his son is what has to be resolved before the story ends.The handsome production values are all enhanced by the constant use of Duchin's music, either in the background or with him at the keyboard and these qualities make it one of the most enjoyable musical biographies I've seen in a long time.The film won four Oscar nominations and Power deserved to be included, but was not.

Eddy Duchin was thought by some music critics and musicians to be more a showman than a talented performer. Some criticized his playing for the number of errors that might appear, but which did not matter to the audience because of the flair and enthusiasm in his playing style. Certainly Carmen Cavallero, who provided the music delivered by Tyrone Power in the title role, possessed far greater virtuosity. And although this movie contains some of the very fictionalized aspects of the biographical musicals of the 40's and 50's, it does contain more fact than most. Eddy Duchin did serve as a naval officer, with distinction, in combat in WW II. In contrast to the dramatic, tearjerker ending, he fought for an extended time against his life-ending leukemia. (However, I can't imagine anyone who couldn't be moved to tears by the movie's end, which is a prime example of a contrivance which augments rather then detracts from the story.) Kim Novak and Victoria Shaw are marvelous as his two loves, and the supporting cast excellent. Tyrone Power, who was tragically to die in his prime not many years after this film, will always be one of Hollywood's icons. (This was an eerie parallel to the character he had portrayed here. Like Duchin, whom he had portrayed not long prior, he died a handsome, matinée idol, many years prematurely, at the height of his career - and even more suddenly.) The film also presents an interesting depiction of New York from the 1920's through WW II - perhaps more realistically than it would be today, since the film was made so much closer to these times. And the music is as memorable and enjoyable as one would want or expect.

I wonder what a remake of The Eddy Duchin Story would be like today. Would or could they tell some of the real story, especially since Peter Duchin is still with us.The real Eddy Duchin was a stylish and elegant pianist who broke in with the Leo Reisman Orchestra and then went out on his own with a band. Eddy came along in what we would call the sweet era of popular music, just before swing came in. His golden years would have been the early to middle Thirties.Eddy also married Marjorie Oelrichs, a noted interior designer for the Park Avenue set and she died in 1937 within days of giving birth to their son Peter.Tyrone Power bore more than a passing resemblance to Duchin which no doubt helped the believability of his very sincere performance. Kim Novak played Marjorie Oelrichs Duchin and she was quite good although she does die off in the first half of the film. Eddy himself died in 1951 of leukemia at the age of 42, leaving young Peter an orphan.The man who took in young Peter was not the fictional Sherman Wadsworth as played by Sheppard Strudwick. Sherman Wadsworth was a pseudonym for the man who at the time was the Governor of New York, Averill Harriman, who at that point was a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956. According to a recent biography of Harriman, Harriman believed though he could never prove that the widower Duchin and his wife Marie were having an affair. This was while Harriman was over in Great Britain serving as President Roosevelt's personal representative to Winston Churchill. Also while Harriman was over there he wasn't playing the martyred husband, he was having an affair with Pamela Digby Churchill, wife of Randolph Churchill who later Harriman married after both were rid of their respective spouses. Eddy Duchin made several film appearances in the Thirties and has a page on the Internet Movie Database. If you look at his biography section you will note that it only lists one wife for him. The character that Victoria Shaw played must have been a bit of fiction dreamed up by the author of the screenplay, Leo Katcher. Katcher at the time was a reporter for the New York Post which in those days was a most liberal paper and a supporter of Governor Harriman. Even though Eddy was not quite the man that Ty Power is on the screen, I'm sure he would have approved of the film. What is also true is the relationship with the son he had and how time and circumstance made it all too brief. The best scenes in the film are Power with young Rex Thompson who plays a juvenile Peter. Also note a scene in the Phillipines when Duchin is in the Navy with little Warren Hsieh.The Eddy Duchin Story is a good bit of entertainment and the piano music of Carmen Cavallaro pinchhitting for Duchin made the original cast album a big seller.