Una leyenda de amor

It's 1905. Nora Bayes (Ann Sheridan) notices that single gal song acts aren't working anymore. It's either singing girl groups or couple acts. She tries to recruit her friend Jack Norworth (Dennis Morgan) for a couple act. He dismisses her at first. Eventually, he accepts her proposal. Their friend is magician, The Great Georgetti (Jack Carson).

This is a biopic of vaudevillian couple Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth. They would 'write' the popular 1900's song "Shine On, Harvest Moon". I don't know any of these songs. I don't know these performers. I doubt that they actually wrote the songs. They definitely did not come up with it while riding a carriage in the moonlight. I cannot comment on any other inaccuracies or even the time period. The music is not necessarily my taste, but I can't find any fault in it. The romantic chemistry is fine. They need a meet-cute, but they do have some heat. The story isn't much after the sleazy club owner early on. There is a fun bit with a magic act. I wouldn't mind a magician try that in his act for real. Margie is a fun dummy. They have the most memorable song "So Dumb but So Beautiful". Maybe they should make a movie about them.

Offered as a biopic of Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth, this is stereotypical Hollywood nonsense about their bad luck, with a total of four songs written by the principals out of twenty-one. Ann Sheridan as Miss Bayes has her singing dubbed by Lynn Martin, and Dennis Morgan as Norworth presumably doing his own. Jack Carson and Marie Wilson pop up every quarter of an hour or so as a magician and his assistant, and Irene Manning yearns for Morgan and also sings some songs. The movie is in black and white until the final medley, and moves right along.

In reality Norworth was Bayes' second of five husbands, she prospered as a comic singer, and became the star of Ziegfeld's first two Follies; she walked out on the third and returned to vaudeville, while Norworth, after their divorce, carved out a very successful career as a Broadway performer. Miss Bayes died in 1928 at the age of 47; Norworth in 1959 at the age of 80, having had nothing to do with this movie but selling his name.

Though this was far from the real story of Nora Bayes, Shine On Harvest Moon provided Ann Sheridan with one of her best roles while contracted to Warner Brothers. Dennis Morgan as Jack Norworth her husband and singing partner was also perfectly cast in his role. I suspect this piece of fiction was done because Jack Norworth was still very much alive, he would not leave this mortal coil until 1959. You can see Norworth in a dramatic role in Rene Clair's The Southerner and Norworth also did at least one short subject as song and dance man. I reviewed it here in fact.

Nora was a nice Jewish girl among other things from Joliet, Illinois and while the film makes no reference she was proud of the fact. Norworth was the second of five husbands she would have, there was no happy ever after for them. Only the title song and another song How Can They Tell That I'm Irish were actually identified with her. For whatever reason songs like Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly and Down Where The Wurzberger Flows were left out. Nora was known in vaudeville as the Wurzberger Girl in fact. She also introduced Over There at a bond rally during World War I. You can see Frances Langford playing her and sining Over There with James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy. In 1944 a lot of people were around who remembered Nora Bayes from the stage and no doubt commented on the fact those songs were missing from the film.

There were in fact a lot of period songs interpolated into the original score written by M.K. Jerome and Kim Gannon. Lynn Martin dubbed Ann Sheridan's singing voice and Irene Manning who played a rival performer sang her own material and well. One song was a real gem, Time Waits For No One was recorded in a best selling record by Helen Forrest.

Some years ago as a lad I attended a Yankee old timers day in 1958 and either Albert Von Tilzer who wrote the music and Jack Norworth who wrote the lyrics were introduced. What these two gentlemen collaborated on was Take Me Out To The Ballgame which should have earned them a bundle if they never did anything else. I can't recall which one it was, but both died within a few years of this game. Reference to Norworth's writing baseball ballad is made, but whether he wrote music or lyrics is unclear.

Also in the film are Jack Carson as a magician vaudeville performer and his dumb Dora assistant Marie Wilson. No one was ever as ingenuous in her performing as Marie Wilson, she set the prototype for those players right up to and including Jessica Simpson.

Despite the criticism Shine On Harvest Moon is a delightful film with some great acting, singing, and dancing in it.

When this film was made, "ghost singers" did not get screen credit for dubbing: Ms. Sheridan's singing voice was that of my (deceased) mother-in-law, Lynn Martin. (Incidentally, Lynn Martin was also the voice of Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" !!) We were delighted to catch "Shine on Harvest Moon" on 7/24/2000 on Turner Classic Movies: now we at last have a wonderful copy of my wife's mother's talented voice!

A weak musical propped up by a strong cast with only the title number a stand out from a mediocre crop of songs.

I don't know much about the musical and matrimonial partnership of Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth, but I doubt this movie give is an accurate representation. A previous reviewer noted that Norworth was the 2nd of Baynes five husbands, their union ending in divorce, somewhat souring with fact the sugary, idealistic portrayal of their partnership in this biopic.

Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan made a number of satisfying films together - this is not one of them.

Also, there's a pretty awful song about how dumb one of the characters is. Meant in fun, maybe, but less than rewarding in execution.