A Montanha de Cristal

I first saw this movie in 1950 and I fell in love with the music. I still play the themes today. Although I have since visited parts of Switzerland I still yearn to see the Matterhorn and find out if it's true that if you call out the name of your true love, it will echo around the mountain.This was the myth featured in the film and although Richard thought he loved the woman who saved his life up there, when his wife's small aircraft crashed on the mountain and he rushed to be by her side - he called her name and back came the echo - how romantic. Michael Dennison and Dulcie Gray were a married couple in true life and they didn't have any problems playing together. Anne

Only in the movies could an Englishman in difficulties in the Dolomites come round to find himself being tended to by Tito Gobbi (who promptly bursts into song), as happens to Michael Denison in this delirious piece of frightfully British hokum enhanced by spectacular Alpine scenery and a sequence in Venice.

Aided by the crashing chords of Fellini's later collaborator Nino Rota on the soundtrack and a charming young Valentina Cortese making her debut, audiences in postwar austerity Britain just lapped it up.

A nicely shot, scenically attractive, and often moving, powerful and dramatic film. Well worth seeing for its looks alone, but fine score by Nino Rota and the voice of the great baritone Tito Gobbi make it a must for opera lovers. If the main theme sounds familiar it was used years ago for the theme song for a TV show called "Picture for a Sunday Afternoon".

Finally got to see THE GLASS MOUNTAIN and was much impressed with the stars, Michael Denison, Dulcie Gray, Valentina Cortese, the location shooting in Venice and the Italian Dolomites, and the opera score by Nino Rota.

Story centers on sensitive composer (Denison) who marries (Gray) on the eve of WW II. He's shot down in the mountains and is saved by a local girl (Cortese) who nurses him back to health and tells him the myths about the doomed lovers who haunt the Glass Mountain, which looms over the village. His imagination is stirred. The war ends and he returns to England but his heart is in the mountains so he goes back to Italy and Cortese to write his opera, weaving bits of local folk music (a la Grieg) into his themes. At the debut of his opera at Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Cortese receives word that the estranged wife's plane has gone off course and crashed in the mountains because she wanted to see the Glass Mountain. Pure soap, but very effective.

There is a lengthy and beautifully staged sequence of the opera's climax with a terrific score by Nino Rota and sung by Tito Gobbi and Elena Rizzieri.

This was an English-Italian production directed by Henry Cass, who I don't think I've ever heard of.

I too saw this film when I was a youngster and of course didn't understand most of it except that I loved the music and always remembered the main melody even after 50 years! The main attraction is the wonderful singing of Tito Gobbi, baritone, heard near the beginning when he sings the familiar theme song, with an accordion to accompany him. There's also the performance later on of the new opera "The Glass Mountain" and he is splendid in this as well.

Mostly the story revolves around a young married couple, Richard Wilder, as a music composer (Michael Denison) and his wife Anne (Dulcie Gray). In the aftermath of recuperating from a plane crash in war torn Italy Richard also meets Alida, a lovely Italian lady, and from her he learns about the legend of the Glass Mountain and seriously plans to write an opera based on it when he returns home. This opera would of course be written with his newfound friend in mind, Tito Gobbi, the baritone, as the central figure, and thank goodness for once a baritone is the hero! Let the tenors wait their next turn.

Eventually Richard must choose between a wife back home who loves him and the Italian new love who is devoted to him too. It is during the premiere of his new opera that events take a sudden turn when there's news of a plane crash in which his wife Anne was traveling in - this gives him the answer.

A very romantic film and beautiful music as well. An experience not to be missed.