Sogno di boheme

Before I began watching "So This is Love", I read through the IMDB reviews. One struck me when it essentially said that the way they portrayed Grace Moore made her difficult to like. Well, I did some reading and after realizing much of the film is rather fictional (no surprise given when it was made), Ms. Moore as played by Kathryn Grayson is actually reasonably close to the real thing when it comes to behaving like a diva. She was, apparently, rather difficult to like and was abrasive and was known for her foul language. So, at least in this sense, I think the movie actually makes Moore seem pretty good.

So am I saying it's a good biopic about the opera star, Grace Moore? Not especially. I saw two big problems. First, the film only goes up to Moore's successful performance at the Met in the early 1920s. She didn't die until well over two decades later and we learn nothing about this part of her life . Second, the film sure seemed like a showcase for Grayson than a biopic. It was chocked full of musical numbers and a few dance numbers...when instead the film should have concentrated more on letting us know who Moore was.

Overall, this is a slick looking film chock full of Grayson production numbers. On this level, it works if you like that sort of thing. But its shallow treatment of Moore makes you wish a really good biopic could be made about her and her up and down career.

If Grace Moore were still alive I'm sure she'd have been pleased that she was tributed by another great soprano in the person of Kathryn Grayson. But she'd probably wonder where are all the songs that she made famous.

Probably because the two American studios that she worked for, first MGM and then Columbia held all the copyrights and Jack Warner wasn't about to shell out some big bucks for One Night Of Love, Love Me Forever and I'll Take Romance for his film. It makes me wonder why his studio chose Grace Moore as the subject of a biographical film.

The problem was somewhat solved by taking her story up to 1928, the year she made her Metropolitan Opera debut. All these songs were in the future. But they also managed to select a list of popular songs that she wasn't identified with at all. I did a bit of research on the subject and confirmed it. The only song that Grayson sings in So This Is Love that is both not operatic and identified with Grace Moore is Ciribiribin, cheerfully for Jack Warner in the public domain.

The story we get as far as it goes is that of young Grace Moore, born in Slabtown, raised in Jellico, Tennessee who had a burning ambition to sing. Nothing stood in her way and we see a few broken hearts like Merv Griffin's and Douglas Dick's left by the wayside. What's not shown here is that Grace Moore was every inch southern born and bred and that includes a few negatives I think you can figure out.

What Grace Moore was however was one of the greatest entertainers of the 20th century. She conquered five mediums, the musical stage, grand opera, recordings, radio, and film. The last three get no mention at all. She was the most popular selling classical artist between Enrico Caruso and Mario Lanza on record, she was a Hollywood star as I said before later in her career, and she appeared numerous times on radio on the Bell Telephone Hour. Not touching on any of that in So This Is Love does Moore an injustice.

Her life story would make a compelling film if the real story were told and maybe Columbia could do it and dub her voice to a current actress. There are surely none around like Kathryn Grayson who could actually sing those songs.

Kathryn Grayson portrays singer Grace Moore in "So This is Love," a 1953 musical biography. Merv Griffin, of all people, plays one of her suitors. The film also features Douglas Dick, Jeff Donnell, Joan Weldon, Walter Abel, Ann Doran, and Rosemary DeCamp.

As pointed out in other reviews, this is a small part of Moore's story, concerning her early life and her efforts to become an opera star. The film also shows her Broadway success, but fails to show that she introduced the song "What'll I Do." And it completely leaves out her film career, which went from 1930 to 1939.

Moore was a lyric soprano and strongly tied to French repertoire, specifically Manon and Louise, as well as La Boheme; eventually she went into more spinto repertoire with Tosca. In films, she sang arias from Madama Butterfly and "Casta Diva" from Norma. All of which is to say that she and coloratura Kathryn Grayson did not share much repertoire. The music performed in the film, therefore, is more suited to Grayson's voice.

Kathryn Grayson does a lovely job as Moore. She's very pretty and her voice is in good shape as the ambitious singer Moore, and she's effective in the musical comedy numbers as well as the operatic ones. I don't know that her singing of "Mi chiamano Mimi" would have garnered her a standing ovation from a Metropolitan Opera audience, but the aria was put into the film as Mimi was Moore's Met debut. It's not really right for Grayson's voice.

Moore died in a plane crash in 1947, and I can't imagine a biopic today leaving that out. This film concentrates on music and the driving ambition of a young girl determined to make it on the opera stage. On that basis, it's entertaining.

I saw this film many years ago and would love to see it again. I also wish it were available in DVD. It is the true story of Grace Moore, who was born in Tennessee in 1898. She was a singer of Broadway musicals, an opera star, and a lovely lady Florenz Ziegfeld described as "the most beautiful woman in the world." Tragically, Miss Moore was killed in a plane crash in Copenhagen, Denmark, in January 1947. Also on board was a member of the Danish royal family. In the nearly six decades after her death, Miss Moore's talent lives on in the recordings of her music.

I hope this film will be appreciated by today's young people and that they will learn valuable lessons from it.

This seems to be fairly accurate as a biopic. certainly, the sequence where Grace Moore's vocal trauma was dealt with appeared to follow the events and treatment described in You're Only Human Once, Moore's autobiography.

1953 was a year in which two American singers starred in filmed tributes to stars of earlier times: Patrice Munsel played the title role in the British production of Melba, and Kathryn Grayson made a convincing and entertaining Grace Moore for Warners.

So This Is Love is a film that many people may find enjoyable, and seems to have been a worthy attempt by both the star and the studio to pay their sincere respects to Grace Moore, herself an outstanding figure in stage and film work. Hopefully it may soon be available on DVD or whatever the new formats may be.