One Night of Love

After losing a radio contest, operatic singer Grace Moore (as Mary Barrett) decides to go to Italy and perfect her craft. Already quite impressive, she uses her vocal skills to win friends and influence the rent-collecting landlady. Working at a café, Ms. Moore meets singing maestro Tullio Carminati (as Giulio Monteverdi) and agrees to become his pupil. They move in together but agree not to have sex. "Business and love do not mix," asserts Mr. Carminati, who relinquished himself of attractive Mona Barrie (as Lally) when she wanted to make love...

The rejected woman re-enters the picture and handsome Lyle Talbot (as Bill Houston) is also around. He would like to marry Moore. All of this fluff is meant to showcase Moore, who acquits herself well after some less than blockbuster films for MGM. Moore received an "Oscar" nomination for her starring role. The "Academy" and "New York Times" also lauded co-star Carminati and director Victor Schertzinger. Moore's closing number is a highlight.

***** One Night of Love (9/5/34) Victor Schertzinger ~ Grace Moore, Tullio Carminati, Lyle Talbot, Mona Barrie

Unlike MGM's favorite soprano, JEANETTE MacDONALD, other singers from the Met tried screen careers at various times in the '30s, but none emerged winning enough as screen personalities to rival Jeanette. Columbia tried hard with GRACE MOORE and this is undoubtedly one of her better efforts at attaining screen stardom. TULLIO CARMINATI is amusingly persistent as her demanding voice coach who discovers her singing "Ciribiribin" in a cellar cafe before offering to become her tutor. LYLE TALBOT is her boyfriend with marriage on his mind. But the silly script has Miss Moore acting like a spoiled prima donna, cavorting with boyfriend Talbot while supposedly training for her big moment as "Carmen". A series of misunderstandings involving another woman, MONA BARRIE (strongly resembling Kay Francis), makes up much of the backstage part of the story and only weakens the overall film. Moore is fine whenever she's singing but the lip synch is way off during the final "Un Bel Di" and it's hard to see where her performance earned her an Oscar nomination for the acting part of her role. Summing up: A disappointment for me, regardless of glowing tributes from the other commentators on this particular film.

Grace Moore stars in "One Night of Love," a 1934 movie also starring Tullio Carminati and Lyle Talbot. Carminati plays a renowned vocal teacher, Giulio Monteverdi, who takes a young aspiring opera singer, Maria Barrett, under his wing. Still scarred from a disastrous love affair with a former student, Monteverdi makes it clear that the word love must never be mentioned. Maria isn't worried; she believes she's in love with another (Lyle Talbot). Nevertheless, the two fall in love but don't admit it. When Monteverdi's old student reappears, Maria becomes jealous and turns into an uberdiva.

This delightful musical was a huge success - the operatic selections are wonderful, as is the title song, which was a big recording success for Moore. Moore's voice is absolutely beautiful. Female singers were trained a little differently in those days, often backing off of their high notes. Moore does a little of that but has a glorious extension above high C. Her best singing is in her rendition of "One Night of Love"; unfortunately, the opera selections sung by "Maria Barrett" were vocally wrong for this charming lyric coloratura. Moore herself has a nice warm presence on screen, though I read once that she had an unfortunate resemblance to the comedienne Joan Davis. From certain angles, that is true, but she was photographed carefully and looks lovely throughout the movie, slender and beautiful. Due to marrying a Frenchman and living part-time in France, working at her opera career, concertizing and eventually entertaining the troops, Moore only made 9 films. She died in a plane crash in 1947 at 49 years of age.

The opera selections were, as always, on the strange side. Only in Hollywood would a lyric coloratura with a weak lower register and no chest voice sing Carmen! From the sound, female singers also were not taught to do a mix on the lower notes. The role for Moore in Carmen is Micaela, which is indeed the role she played. Surprisingly, she also in real life did Tosca and Butterfly, which must have been total disasters. Her Butterfly, the finale of the film, is not good, particularly at the end. Her voice just isn't powerful enough, nor should it be - she wasn't a spinto or dramatic soprano or even a big lyric! The voice suffers, occasionally falling out of placement in the middle range. "Sempre Libera" was a series of wrong and skipped notes. And she scooped like crazy. This is nitpicking, but I would have preferred to hear some "La Boheme," Mimi being her Metropolitan Opera debut, or the Jewel Song from Faust, or Micaela's aria, all of which suited her voice perfectly, and all of which she sang during her career.

If you love opera, you'll love "One Night of Love" for its glorious music and the elegantly-voiced Grace Moore.

More dated than Columbia's other big hit of 1934, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, this influential musical still seems light and bright because it never takes itself too seriously. Its success revealed the public's unsuspected hunger for opera, or more accurately, pretty snippets from operas. This certainly gave MGM ideas about how to showcase Jeanette MacDonald, and started a stampede to corral star sopranos [Lily Pons], budding divas [Deanna Durbin], and operatic guest stars [even Kirsten Flagstad sings in BIG BROADCAST OF 1938].

At the time, Grace Moore got all the attention, as much for her shapely figure and for stepping down from her Metropolitan Opera pedestal as for her actual performance. Playing a soprano who spends her savings to study with a famous maestro in Italy, the 33 year-old Moore seems a bit of a late starter, but bounces around with lots of vivacity. Singing the title song and the inevitable "Ciri-Biri-Bin", she mostly avoids the pearls-before-swine tone of opera singers when they stoop to popular song, although she still sashays [especially as Carmen] and waves her arms too much for modern tastes.

Many decades later, it is clear that much of the charm was supplied by Tullio Carminati, an appealing comic actor with a wry quality, something like an Italian Walter Matthau. As Moore's mentor/romantic interest, he has a kind of offhand sophistication and the expert timing to support Moore's occasionally shaky line readings [of course, she's the one who got the Oscar nomination].

Director Victor Schertzinger soft-pedals the high culture, and manages several Lubitsch/Mamoulian moments: one amusing conceit has a building full of musicians all practicing different instruments in discord, until Moore unites the tunes with her impromptu rendition of "Sempre Libre" from LA TRAVIATA. Another enjoyable sequence presents singing a quartet from LUCIA as a strategy to avoid paying the rent. When the plot enters the tiresome misunderstandings phase, Schertzinger keeps the pace going until the finale, a staging of a scene from MADAME BUTTERFLY.

Throughout, Joseph Walker, Columbia's maestro of camerawork, softly lights Moore to utmost advantage, and even gets in a couple of zoom shots [in 1934!]

I have such lovely memories of Grace Moore in this movie which I first saw in 1968. I liked her subsequent films with Franchot Tone (The King Steps Out)Cary Grant (For You Alone) and Melvyn Douglas (I'll Take Romance) but One Night of Love is my favourite. I have a precious video copy from TV but hope Columbia will release it on DVD soon so that many more folk will perhaps share my liking for this singer who wasn't much of an actress but somehow in this film the character fitted her. And her singing is first class - her "One Fine Day" is so moving. Tullio Carminatti is very good as her singing teacher whom she falls in love with. Grace tragically died in a plane crash in 1946. Who knows, maybe Columbia will give us a box set of these 4 of her films.