Uma Noite de Amor

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.

One Night of Love proved to be a successful comeback picture of sorts for Metropolitan Opera Star Grace Moore. Having not established herself at an earlier outing in Hollywood with MGM, Harry Cohn and Columbia got her back with this film that showcased Moore's magnificent voice.

The film is your usual backstage story only with an operatic twist. Moore is an aspiring opera singer and as the picture opens she's singing the title tune which became a big hit at a radio station contest. The prize is a scholarship to study in Italy. Believe it or not, Grace Moore doesn't win, but she's determined and with her meager savings she goes to Italy and studies to become a great opera diva.

Along the way she gets involved with two men, voice teacher Tullio Carminati and American expatriate Lyle Talbot. Carminati also has a witch of an ex-pupil/girlfriend he's trying to dump, deliciously played by Mona Barrie.

But this is Miss Grace Moore's film and that's how she is billed here and would be for the rest of her film career. Grace Moore, who's all but forgotten today except for devoted opera fans, conquered four areas of entertainment; recordings, stage, grand opera, and finally film.

She was the best selling classical artist of her day. On Broadway in Irving Berlin's Music Box Revues she introduced several of his standards, most importantly the song Always. Her buxom beauty (she was a full-figured gal before Jane Russell made bra commercials) helped popularize opera for the masses. And after failing with MGM she finally did become a film star with this film.

Moore set off a couple of copycats in Hollywood with her success. 20th Century Fox signed Lily Pons and Paramount inked Gladys Swarthout to film contracts. Both these ladies fine singers that they were, never achieved even the limited success Moore had. The problem with signing opera singers is that you have to have them singing opera to show off their talent. That has a limited appeal and Moore too was finished in Hollywood in four years.

The film is curiously autobiographical in the same way Mario Lanza's That Midnight Kiss is. Moore plays a small town girl who wants to sing opera, just like the real Grace Moore. How often will the public go to see an opera singer, even a great one, play an opera singer? Moore played versions of Mary Barrett for the rest of her film career at Columbia.

Still the original is a tuneful treat. In addition to the title song and several arias, Moore also sings Ciribiribin which was a favorite song always requested at concerts and even at encores of her operatic performances.

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.

This is my second viewing and it still remains one of the greatest musicals I have seen. I would definitely put it in my top ten favorite musicals of all-time. "One Night of Love" is not just a bubbly Grace Moore vehicle – it's a classic example of elegant 30s musical made with vigor and conviction. One viewing just won't do to fully enjoy it.

Exuberantly directed by Victor Schertzinger with some lavish sets, "One Night of Love" takes us into the enchanting world of opera, with all its joys and pleasures, difficulties and heartbreaks. Moore previously made two MGM movies, both of which were commercial disappointments. Then in 1934, Columbia Pictures gave the famed opera diva another chance; to their surprise, it scored a huge success and was ultimately nominated for some Oscars.

The film genially mixes popular ballads and grand opera. Moore is very beautiful and is endowed with a strong, haunting, and remarkably talented opera voice. In this film, Moore is aided by Tullio Carminati who plays her mentor and romantic interest. Her final performance at the Metropolitan Grand Opera packs a stirring punch.

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!]