Serenade ** (1956, Mario Lanza, Joan Fontaine, Sara Montiel, Vincent Price) – Classic Movie Review 9764

James M Cain’s dark and gritty 1937 thriller source novel Serenade is emasculated to produce a standard soapy Hollywood musical tale of a poor vineyard worker Damon Vincenti (Mario Lanza) rising to operatic success via the sponsorship of rich society hostess Kendall Hale (Joan Fontaine), the machinations of impresario Charles Winthrop (Vincent Price) and the desire of poor-girl Juana Montes (Sara Montiel, billed as Sarita Montiel), a Mexican bullfighter’s daughter.

For director Anthony Mann’s melodramatic 1956 film Serenade, Hollywood chops the book’s homosexual themes and dark and gritty thriller elements, and consequently all its most interesting ingredients.

Still, there is a lot of operatic music, and Lanza is in fine voice, and he belts out ‘Nessun Dorma’ (Puccini), ‘Ave Maria’ (Schubert) and ‘Serenade’ (Nicholas Brodszky and Sammy Cahn). Also of note are the Act III Monologue from Verdi’s Otello and an extract from the duet ‘Dio Ti Giocondi’ from Otello featuring Metropolitan Opera soprano Licia Albanese.

It is tenor Lanza’s fifth film, and his first on-screen appearance in four years.

Cain’s story is not about a male tenor involved with two women, but a male tenor wooed sexually by a male socialite impresario and involved with a Mexican female prostitute who sees him as gay and a trouble-free partner with whom to open a brothel.

Film rights to the novel were bought in 1946 by the production company of Michael Curtiz, who must always have wondered how this provocative material could have been considered suitable for an American movie in this era.

Also in the cast are Joseph Calleia as Maestro Marcatello, Harry Bellaver as Tonio, Vince Edwards as Marco Roselli, Silvio Minciotti as Lardelli, Frank Puglia as Manuel Montes, Edward Platt as Everett Carter, Licia Albanese as Desdemona in Otello, Jean Fenn as soprano in San Francisco, Frank Yaconelli, Mario Siletti, Maria Serrango, Eduardo Noriega, Joseph Vitale, Victor Romito, Norma Zimmer, Jose Govea, Stephen Bekassy, Elizabeth Flournoy, Martin Garralaga, Mickey Golden, Creighton Hale, Nick Mora, Vincent Padula, José Torvay, and Don Turner.

Unfortunately for Mario Lanza, the film made a loss of $695,000, even though it took $1,585,000 at the US box office.

Serenade is directed by Anthony Mann, runs 121 minutes, is released by Warner Bros, is written by Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts and John Twist, Based on the novel by James M Cain, is shot in Warnercolor by J Peverell Marley, is produced by Henry Blanke, is scored by Nicholas Brodszky and Ray Heindorf and is designed by Edward Carrere.

Spanish singer and actress Sara Montiel (10 March 1928 – 8 April 2013 has been called a ‘sexual, feminist and gay icon for Francoist Spain’. She became an iconic figure to the gay community, and noted: ‘Whenever I perform in any city in the USA, all the gays from that city show up.’ Gael García Bernal plays her in drag in the 2004 Pedro Almodóvar film Bad Education as the cross-dressing character Zahara, and a film clip from one of her movies is used.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9764

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