Here Is My Heart

Successful singer Bing Crosby is in Monte Carlo on his yacht. He's trying to purchase one of the pistols given by Catherine the Great to John Paul Jones so he can donate it to the US Naval Academy. Russian princess Kitty Carlisle isn't interested in selling. Crosby winds up serving her and her entourage -- Roland Young, Reginald Owen, and Alison Skipworth -- dinner, so they insist on his being their regular waiter. Crosby falls in love with her immediately, and they're broke. The usual complications ensue. Crosby is is very comfortable in his playing, Young is fine, Owen is adequate, Miss Skipworth is wasted, and Miss Carlisle.... well, she's pretty.

There's a pretty good bunch of songs, including the premiere of "Love Is Just Around The Corner" for Crosby to perform. Miss Carlisle sings a Russian song. Supporting performers include William Frawley, Cecilia Parker, Akim Tamiroff and Arthur Housman. It's a pleasant vehicle for Crosby.

This film had been thought of as lost for about half a century when apparently Kathryn Crosby must have been rummaging through some closets and announced that Bing had a copy of this formerly lost film of his.

It was restored and back in the early 1990s I saw the newly restored version with my friend Scott Barton and hosting the film was its co-star, Kitty Carlisle. It was a great afternoon.

And the film was well worth saving. Songwriters Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger gave Crosby, It's June In January and With Every Breath I Take to sing and Robin teamed up with Lewis Gensler for Love Is Just Around the Corner. All three songs were good selling records for Bing and a particular favorite of mine has always been With Every Breath I Take. He sang these a few times during the film both solo and as duets with Carlisle.

The records incidentally were the first movie songs and almost the first songs Crosby recorded for the brand new Decca record label. Although Decca signed many artists, Crosby was their number one artist for 20 years. Decca and Crosby were virtually synonymous.

No acting stretch here in terms of character. Crosby plays a rich crooner. Jokes about his wealth were a staple in Bob Hope's repertoire, although Hope did pretty good in that department as well. In 1934 Crosby was accumulating his fortune, but he wasn't near the point where as Hope once said, "he doesn't pay taxes, he just calls up the Treasury and asks how much they need."

Like many rich people and some not so rich Bing was collecting his toys in this film and he had one pistol in a matched set of dueling pistols that once belonged to John Paul Jones. Bing wants to get the set and donate them to the Naval Academy. Problem is that the other one belongs to Kitty Carlisle who is an exiled Russian princess living in Monte Carlo with her retinue which consists of Roland Young, Alison Skipworth and Reginald Owen. Essentially these people live off her selling her possessions and they're getting fewer and fewer.

So Bing goes off to Monte Carlo meets Carlisle and the fun begins. A standard criticism I have of Crosby's films is that Paramount shot them on the cheap, especially his musical numbers. It would have been great if Paramount had actually shot the thing in Monte Carlo, but to be fair, no studio in Hollywood would have gone those lengths in 1934. Twenty years later Paramount did go to Monte Carlo for a movie and the result was To Catch A Thief. Here Is My Hear would have been as special as that film had they done that and with color to boot.

This was also the first film Crosby did with William Frawley who appeared in several of his films. Frawley was one of film land's great misanthropic alcoholics and by all accounts not a nice man to know. Crosby and a lot of Hollywood gave up on him, until Desi Arnaz saved him from oblivion and gave him a fresh career as Fred Mertz.

Kitty Carlisle said that Crosby was a difficult man to know for her. He came to the studio, did his business and left. If he had his druthers, Bing would have been out on the golf course. But she enjoyed the two films she did with him. When I saw Here Is My Heart it was playing with Murder At the Vanities and she had not much good to say about her leading man Carl Brisson in that one.

One ironic tragedy. The film centered around Crosby trying to acquire antique dueling pistols. Crosby's crooning rival Russ Columbo was killed by an antique dueling pistol that summer around the time Here Is My Heart would have been in the theaters. A year before Columbo had visited Bing on the set of We're Not Dressing where Crosby's co- star was Carole Lombard who was linked to Columbo at the time.

Here Is My Heart was well worth saving. I guess we should all be grateful to Kathryn Crosby for doing her spring cleaning.

I agree wholeheartedly with Cygnus58 regarding Kitty Carlisle. She was beautiful though. This movie is definitely a vehicle for the incredible talent of Bing Crosby. Crosby was certainly in his prime in 1934. A pre-swing singer for sure, who I believe was eclipsed by singers like Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes and others, after the advent of Benny Goodman and Swing Music in 1936.

I never got Crosby until I saw this piece. Now I get it. His post-swing Dixieland type singing and his duets with the Andrew Sisters never cut it with me. But he is a fabulous entertainer and singer in this film. If you never liked the older Bing, you'll love him in this film.

This film is a good look at a young Bing Crosby. He was then 30 and was in his 20th film since his start in 1930. His J. Paul Jones is an established crooner of radio and records, and he's cruising in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where he soon lands a small fish. He checks off one more item on his list that he had made when 11 years old. The list is "Things I'll do after I've made a million bucks." Well, one of those was, "Fish in middle of Atlantic." So after the captain and others of his crew determine they are smack dab in the middle, they let Jones know and he drops a line into the water and retrieves the small fish. This was all to the delight of his passengers.

Onboard are some guests whom Jones "rescued" from the gambling tables of Monte Carlo. One of his attractive guests, Claire, is drawn to him and he to her. She fulfilled one other item on his list - to rescue a damsel in distress. Another item on his list regards the pistols that Catherine the Great of Russia gave to the famous John Paul Jones. By now, the audience realizes that Jones is a real relative of the legendary American naval hero - who was a great uncle or something, because the real Jones never married or had any children. The opening scene shows the name of the Jones yacht, the "Bon Homme Richard" out of Yorktown, Virginia. So, Jones already owns one of the pistols and is in pursuit of the other, after which he plans, on his list, to present them to the U. S. Naval Academy. Now he gets a radio message from a news hound he knows, James "Jimmy" Smith. The other pistol is reputed to be in Monte Carlo, in the possession of a former Russian princess.

Yep - this is one of the many films made in the 1930s in which characters played displaced and refugee royalty of the former Russian Empire. I don't know if Americans or the movie public in general were that enamored with the thought of the Imperial ranks that had to flee for their lives after the Bolshevik Revolution. But they did provide fodder for interesting stories; and for more that two decades after that event, Hollywood kept the interest alive with films.

So, back they go to Monte Carlo, but just to drop Jones off. His boat and guests are to cruise over to Italy where he will meet them later. The comedy now takes off with the entourage of the Princess Alexandra. Kitty Carlisle is in just her third role of a very short career in films. She became prominent on radio and TV, and sang on Broadway; and was later a popular game show panelist. I remember watching "To Tell the Truth" frequently from the mid-1950s on, and Carlisle was one of the featured panelists for some 20 years.

But, I have to say, in this film she not only isn't anything special - she sings one short song and just voices a couple of stanzas almost as a duet with Crosby. It's not very good, and other than portraying a snobbish upper crust princess, she's not even attractive. Claire, back on the boat, was much more alluring. So, I suspect that audiences at that time also had a hard time swallowing any romantic attraction of Crosby's Jones to the princess. Even though Crosby plays his part as an almost lovesick puppy in pursuit of a princess, it's hard to buy that. But then, that in itself may be part of the comedy.

I rate this film six stars for two reasons. One is the comical situation that develops as Jones becomes a hotel waiter in his effort to get close to the pistol to acquire it. And, with that comes the other -- the comedy that is provided by the stellar supporting cast of actors. Reginald Owen as Prince Vladimir, Roland Young as Prince Nicholas, William Frawley as Jimmy Smith, and Akim Tamiroff as the hotel manager provided many of the occasions for laughter in "Here is My Heart."

Modern audiences probably wouldn't care much for this film, and its portrayal with the displaced Russian royalty doesn't really give a feel for the history or the times of the film. But, film buffs - those who enjoy all aspects of the cinema, including its early history and prolific production of movies over the decades, may be interested and enjoy it some. And, how many of us remember our history - that John Paul Jones actually got permission from the U. S. to serve in the Russian navy? Catherine the Great asked him to help the Russian fleet in the Black Sea against the Ottoman Empire.

Here are a few of the better lines from this film.

J. Paul Jones, "You're right, Jimmy. They're a couple of snobs. I think I'll stay over and tell her so." James Smith, "That's right. Stand outside her door and yodel, 'Snob!'"

Countess Rostova, mistaking Jones for the drunken waiter who passed out, "Waiter? What are you doing there? Why don't you bring in the dinner?" After an indignant look, Jones sees the princess behind the countess. The countess continues, "Well, are you stupid, or impertinent?" Jones, bowing "Stupid, madame." Countess, "And, impertinent. Hurry, please."

Jones, after he buys the hotel and audits the books, "Don't people ever pay their bills?" Hotel manager, "Oh, well, uh, the lower classes, uh sometimes. The middle class, always. But the upper classes, monsieur, never!"

James Smith, seeing Jones acting as waiter, "Boy, oh, boy, is this good. What a story. I can see it now. 'Warbling Waiter Outwits Royalty.'" Later, "Ah, 'Poisons Princess, Purloins Pistol."

Here Is My Heart is another escapism romantic flick during the Great Depression intended to show poor audiences that rich people are frivolous and silly. So is the rest of this film.

Bing Crosby is a bored millionaire who falls in love with a princess, Kitty Carlisle, but due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, she thinks he's a waiter. To have a little fun, Bing plays along and pretends he's a penniless servant; Kitty wants nothing to do with him. My question is, why does he want anything to do with her? Can't he recognize she's snobby and make a play for someone else? Apparently not, and if you don't like Kitty, you're not going to like this movie.

In a hilarious scene, Bing listens to a record of his own recording of "It's June in January", sings harmony with himself, and after listening to a high note, comments to the recording, "Ah, you made it!" When Bing is by himself or coming up with funny schemes with his buddy, Roland Young, the movie isn't that bad, but Kitty is just too much of a one-dimensional villainess and tends to ruin the scenes she's in. If you do end up liking this one, though, check out We're Not Dressing, which is very similar.