"Give Us This Night" is one of the operatic musicals that Paramount Pictures made during the 1930s. For a time, opera was popular and Hollywood studios competed with musicals that featured prominent opera singers. While Europeans had opera for some three centuries, in the U. S., only people in New York and a few other large cities had access to opera. So, the ability to see some of the great singers of the world whom people had heard on records and the radio, likely fanned the flames of public interest for such musicals for a time.
Paramount was trying to build up American-born Gladys Swarthout as its new opera star. She was a lead soprano at the Met in New York. This was her second film of what would be a very short film career. She would make just five films in four years, and then return to the stage for opera. But, the surprise in this film was the Polish-born tenor, Jan Kiepura. He clearly outshone the headliner in this film. But it wasn't anything negative on her part. Americans just got to see and hear for the first time, a male tenor with a dynamic voice and persona.
The story is set in Italy where Kiepura's Antonio Belizza is a singing fisherman. In the opening scene, the boats of the small fishing fleet are hauling in their nets filled with fish. Antonio's robust tenor is heard above the action. And, his singing fills the air as the boats return home and enter the alcove harbor with the villas of Sorrento perched atop cliffs high above the harbor. The credits just show the Paramount Studios for the shooting locations, but these opening scenes were clearly shot along the coast somewhere.
I don't know of any place in California that might look like this, with the adobe-walled buildings. Since Kiepura had been in a number of European films before this, including two British-made films set in the Mediterranean - one at Italy and the other at Monte Carlo, it's a good guess that some footage for this film might have come from there. Or did Paramount build or transport a bunch of European fishing sail-boats, and then have them all put down with nets filled with fish to be filmed?
Well, Swarthout's Maria Severelli plays a singer who will be starring in a new opera in nearby Naples. She and her tutor and composer, Marcello Bonelli, discover Antonio by chance, and he will join the musical. That's after the lead tenor, Forcellini, has voice problems and tries to cure them with the bottle. This should also be listed as a comedy, because Alan Mowbray plays Forcellini in a role that is intended for comedy. It's a bit dark, but good.
Long-time movie buffs may be surprised to see another familiar face in the supporting cast. Sidney Toler plays a guard, and he has a couple of lines. Toler had been in three dozen films before this, but wouldn't make his mark as someone to be recognized long into the future, until 1938. That year he debuted as the famous Chinese detective, Charlie Chan from Hong Kong. He would make 19 more films as Chan over the next eight years. His last film, before his death in 1947, was as Charline Chan in "The Trap," of 1946. I must be one of millions of Americans who enjoyed watching those Charlie Chan movies as a teenager on late night TV in the 1950s. Back then, late night was 10 p.m., after the 9 o'clock news.
The technical quality of this film, at least as it can be viewed today, isn't very good. The plot is a good one, but the screenplay is a bit flimsy. A much better writing job and filming could have raised this film quite a bit. Still, it's worth seeing for the two singers, especially Jan Kiepura. He would make several more films and perform in operas and on stage around the world. The same year that this film came out, he married another opera singer, Martha Eggerth, from Budapest. They met the year before when they starred in the British musical, "My Heart is Calling," of 1935. They moved to the U. S. in the 1950s. Kiepura died of heart disease in 1966 at age 64. Martha lived to be 101 and died in their home at Rye, New York, on Dec. 26, 2013.
