User reviews

Oliver Desmond [Carl Harbord] has written a new opera and is scouring Europe with Frances [Leonora Corbett] for a tenor to sing the lead. In Vienna they visit a street cafe where Josef Steidler [Richard Tauber] sings each evening for a few coins. They are impressed with this voice discovered in such an unlikely location, and invite him to London to sing in the opera. He is enamoured with Frances and so agrees, but when she agrees to marry Oliver his unrequited passion takes its toll.

OK, so the plot is neither very special or original. But I would need to be incredibly petty to worry about the absence of plot when I can sit back and luxuriate in such a magnificent voice as Tauber's.

During the 1930s attempts were made on both sides of the Atlantic to turn opera stars into film stars.Laurence Tibbett and Lily Pond were two who failed to make the grade in America.Here in the UK we had the photogenic Richard Tauber He had a great voice,this is indisputable.However he couldn't act and the plots of his films were little more than pegs on which to hang his songs.So quite frankly it would have saved the bother of going out to the cinema by going and buying his records instead.It is difficult to know if the producers were trying to make an entertainment or an artistic effort with a view to impressing that they were now a well-established industry.

The gloriously voiced Richard Tauber stars here in a rag to riches story where he moves from being a cafe singer for a few pennies to a future in opera. Leonora Corbett plays Frances, the girl who ensnares him (Tauber's real-life wife, Diana Napier, also appears as usual).

Naturally one of Tauber's best known songs, 'You Are My Heart's Delight' appears, and whatever you can say about his acting ability (snicker) and screen appeal (zero) he certainly had a beautiful voice and this song is one of the best to showcase it.

The film is otherwise pretty forgettable but would be surpassed the following year by fully fledged opera in his majestical 'Pag'.