Coeurs brisés

Katharine Hepburn and Charles Boyer star in "Break of Hearts," a 1935 film that, despite not being particularly good, has some relevance to today's tabloid news.

Boyer is a Tiger Woods-Jesse James type - he's a conductor who marries a young fledgling composer, is caught cheating on her, and she leaves him. Then he hits the skids.

Predictable '30s drama. Both Boyer and Hepburn are ridiculously young and very attractive. Boyer is quite charming and moody as the conductor. Considering their respective careers, this is really just a blip on the radar.

In the 1930s, there were many "adult" dramas about marital maladjustments. This film is striking because the two main characters, played by Katharine Hepburn and Charles Boyer, have musical careers, she as a composer and he as a famous conductor. The movie is sometimes preposterous, but it has an unusual background of classical music, it's nontraditional in its endorsement of female independence, and it has fine performances.

Franz Roberti (Charles Boyer) is a famous music conductor and Constance Dane (Katharine Hepburn) is an aspiring composer. They fall in love, get married, and struggle with their relationship.

This is all about Boyer and Hepburn. They have a bit of chemistry but I wouldn't call it heated. They are a bit too cerebral. They need a better meet-cute to start off the movie. The relationship is at medium simmer rather than maximum heat. The movie can't elevate that high even with the drama. Nothing is that in doubt. The hurdles aren't that high. It simmers but it never boils.

Two of the most distinguishable voices in film history Charles Boyer and Kate Hepburn find romance in this rather ineffective romantic melodrama involving a famous conductor and a struggling composer. It's a rather tepid Intermezzo.

World famous conductor and womanizer Franz Roberti drops by an old friend's and meets Constance Dane a music teacher and aspirant composer. He's pleasant to her but no more. When she can't get a ticket to his sold out show she sneaks into a rehearsal and creates a scene that first annoys and then charms Roberti. They go out and Roberti lays out his Casanova MO to her but much to his surprise finds himself falling in love and marrying her. They globe trot on their honeymoon and all is well until she discovers he has returned to his old ways and decides to leave him. Crestfallen they almost reconcile but she rejects him and he takes to drink sabotaging his career.

The early scenes between the pair falling in love has a charming energy as Boyer's dark eyed intensity and magnificent inflection charm Hepburn's bedazzled beauty. But once the honeymoon ends and Constance books the film descends into a mawkish affair it can't climb out of with both leads becoming a touch too strident.

Philip Moeller's direction is flat and uninspired as he relies heavily on Hepburn close-ups and Boyer's roving eye to make his point. Advancing the story choppily and with little form in the process the glossy sets and lavish costumes lack the sweep they deserve with Moeller's camera movements tentative at best.

The most ironic moment in the film is when Hepburn launches into discourse on how she will look out for the sodden Roberti eerily reflecting her relationship with Spence a decade away.

At first I wasn't going to bother myself to review this movie which I found very inconsequential. In fact I watched the movie with one eye while concentrating on other things. I am only reviewing it because there is only one other review for the movie. That is a shame because these are two of the most respected actors of their era. The plot as it is nothing unusual. Playboy conductor meets aspiring conductor - they come together - playboy still has wandering eye to which conductress hits the road. Someone they reconcile. Scenes are buffoonish, not dramatic enough nor comedic enough - a rightfully forgotten movie. This needs to be ten lines, why i don't know, some movies aren't worth it so