Rhapsody ** (1954, Elizabeth Taylor, Vittorio Gassman, John Ericson, Louis Calhern) – Classic Movie Review 6415

Elizabeth Taylor stars as Louise Durant, a gorgeous rich young woman romantically involved with both a violinist, Paul Bronte (Vittorio Gassman), and a pianist, James Guest (John Ericson) in Zurich. The question is, which one will end up with her? It’s up to Louise to make up her mind.

The gently ambling plot in director Charles Vidor’s 1954 romance never manages to reach the same tempestuous heights as the powerful score, and the highlights are all musical, with Michael Rabin providing the violin solos and Claudio Arrau the piano.

All eyes are on the woman the two men are (understandably) fighting over – the 22-year-old Taylor, who works hard to show that she is much more than just a pretty face. But the romantic duelling never equals the thrill of the popular classics musical score (Liszt, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky). Gassman and Ericson are pretty dull, but then so is the screenplay by Fay and Michael Kanin, and Ruth and Augustus Goetz, based on the novel Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson.

Wily old Louis Calhern scores strongly as Taylor’s father and the film looks lovely in Robert H Planck’s plushest Technicolor cinematography.

Also in the cast are Michael Chekhov, Barbara Bates, Richard Hageman, Richard Lupino, Celia Lovsky, Stuart Whitman, Madge Blake, Jack Raine, Birgit Nielsen, Jacqueline Duval, Norma Nevens, Lisa Golm, Stuart Holmes, Maurice Marsac, John Mylong, Gordon Richards, Konstantin Shayne and Max Willenz.

It is produced by Lawrence Weingarten, scored by Johnny Green and Bronislau Kaper, and designed by Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6415

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