Song of Scheherazade

This is a surprisingly unknown treasure from classic cinema, containing a soundtrack entirely comprised of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's stunning music. Obviously the storyline is a highly dramatized version of Rimsky-Korsakov for entertainment purposes, but the film is still enchanting for what it is. A must-watch for lovers of golden age Hollywood!

Rimski-Korsakov was a great composer who wrote much very beautiful music, especially his masterpiece, Scheherazade, which is featured in this fictionalized film about his early years as a Russian naval cadet (although he really was a naval cadet before he switched to music as a full- time vocation). Yvonne DeCarlo was an exceptionally beautiful woman, more appreciated for her outstanding beauty than for her acting which, nevertheless, was reasonably competent. That combination was good enough for me when I first saw this movie decades ago as a teenager, and it's still enough to let me enjoy it as an adult. If musical beauty plus feminine beauty are appealing to you, please treat yourself to this film. I do, however, wish that it was available as a DVD.

Biography films are an odd genre; composer films are in a class by themselves. Facts are brushed aside blithely in this film. Korsakov was in the navy and wrote some music while aboard ship. That is the total agreement with history of this film. Add to this the vision of poor Yvonne De Carlo's out-takes of nearly falling over while dancing and you have one of the lamest composer movies ever. So why is this movie so much fun? I think it's the Viennese operetta feel of the piece: logic should never intrude on fun. And Eve Arden's dry delivery doesn't hurt either.

We loved this film specifically for the amazing musical score. Jean-Pierre Aumont (RIP) is the handsome-but-nerdy Russian composer, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, whose wing man is the illustrious tenor Charles Kullmann (RIP) from the Metropolitan Opera - - WOW. Yvonne De Carlo also gives a very lovely performance.

The story line is a little too drawn out, but well balanced as a while, with quite a few amusing and touching parts. The costumes, sets and choreography are remarkable, as only the films of that era could be.

They don't make films like this any more, they really don't. A Russian training-ship wafts round the Mediterranean under the command of cigarette-swallowing martinet-with-a-heart-of-gold Vladimir Gregorovitch, who stalks the deck in bare chest and tight trousers closely inspecting his motley crew of sea cadets, among them wicked whip-wielding aristo Prince Mischetsky and opera hopeful Nikolas 'Nicky' Rimsky-Korsakov. Nicky and shipmate Klin the Singing Doctor rush ashore at every port in search of a piano. But in the Moroccan villa of the impoverished de Talaveras they get more than a heat-warped keyboard: they get a resourceful scheming mother and café-dancer-in-disguise daughter. The stage is set for a hugely enjoyable extravaganza of romantic melodrama, costumes as camp as they come, luscious set design, overripe orchestrations and homo-erotic undercurrents strong enough to sweep an aircraft-carrier on to the rocks (how did it all get past the censors!). Brian Donlevy (the captain) and Eve Arden (the mother) are incomparably wonderful; Jean-Pierre Aumont makes Nicky an engaging hero, and Yvonne De Carlo (daughter) earns the film its full 10 points by gamely battling through some of the worst choreography and hilariously bad makeup ever put on screen. It takes a real trouper to triumph as a convincing love-interest after having to make her first appearance looking and dancing like a duck in boot-polish (Hollywood's idea of a gypsy femme fatale...)