L'archet magique

Stewart Granger stars as Niccolo Paganini in this biopic of the great violinist.

Usually in these reviews, I will go over the outline of the subject's real life. Here, however, there are so many lies and misapprehensions to make it a romance -- this is a Gainsborough Picture, after all -- that it seems to be 99 and forty-four one hundredths per cent made up. The one detail that that rings true is that the Jean Kent character traveled with Paganini on his tours and bore him a son. Otherwise, it's all piffle, although Cecil Parker, as the violinist's manager, makes the most of his part, being humorous, hard-working, and a thoroughly decent chap. Some respect must be given to Granger, who worked hard under David McCallum Sr. To look like he was actually producing the notes from the violin. The violin on the soundtrack was played by Yehudi Menuhin, and the choices of music, particularly in the first third of the movie, seem calculated to astonish the audience for their difficulty rather than their musicality.

Other than that, it's a typical Gainsborough picture, notable for costuming and a cast that includes Dennis Price, Felix Aylmer, Frank Cellier, Phyllis Calvert, and Marie Lohr.

The Magic Bow is the alleged story of 19th century violin virtuoso and composer Niccolo Paganini as played by Stewart Granger. Granger looks the part and plays it well, at least what I heard of it.

I'm not sure if it was the film or the VHS copy I saw, but the music score drowned out the players during much of the film. It would have helped to have been a lip reader and then only if the players were facing the camera head on. The great Yehudi Menuhin did the playing for Granger and if this had been one of his concerts that would have been just fine.

After consulting the Wikipedia article on Paganini I found the Magic Bow to be quite a work of fiction. The plot has Granger as the young violin prodigy, seemingly content with his music and mistress Jean Kent who is also a budding singer. But one sight of Phyllis Calvert, a noblewoman quite a bit above him on the social scale and Granger starts losing sight of his career goals. It also doesn't help that French nobleman Dennis Price is also interested in Calvert and he's willing to back his desires up with a sword.

The article contains no mention of Calvert or Price's character, but in real life Paganini and Bianca did have a kid out of wedlock before they broke up. In real life Paganini never married.

I'm reluctant to criticize a film knowing that it could be my bad copy, but if it was the original film with the heavy handed soundtrack, be forewarned.

1st watched 4/22/2000 - 4 out of 10 (Dir-Bernard Knowles): Slow-moving romanticized story of classic violinist named Paganini. The movie seems to want to woo the women and share the man's story but doesn't do either very well.

Stewart Granger as Niccolò Paganini? Not an obvious choice, I'd have said - but he actually carries it off quite well; especially since much of his scenes involve quite a lot of fairly sophisticated violin playing and his rather tousled locks get in his eyes once too often, too! Sadly, though, the rest of this rarely ascends beyond the mediocrity of a period melodrama - a love story between him and Phyllis Calvert ("Jeanne") whose mother has aspirations for a far more advantageous marriage for her daughter than this mere musician. Enter a very dapper Dennis Price as her suitor "Paul de la Rochelle" who rarely looks comfortable either with his spray-on uniform or his rather stilted lines. It's rescued, as is so often the case, by Cecil Parker as Luigi Germi, his manager/friend who somehow manages to keep Paganini on the straight and narrow as his rise to international stardom coincides with his rather complicated love life. The musical score is marvellous - though the sound mixing on this does rather drown out any dialogue - and the costumes all look the part excellently. At times it is all just a bit too theatrical, but as an introduction to the music of this particular maestro, it is well worth a watch (or maybe just a listen...?)

Bernard Knowles was not alone in being a far better cinematographer than he was a director and was eventually banished to the small screen.

This romanticised biopic of genius Nicolo Paganini from dear old Gainborough Pictures begins very well and has some nice comic touches. One of the most delightful scenes involves the Paganini of Stewart Granger playing by sight an almost impossible piece by the Fazzini of Felix Aylmer and being given a Stradivarius as a reward. Granger utters the immortal line "I played that last phrase atrociously." Somewhere along the line alas the film goes horribly wrong and becomes, to use the current patois, 'clunky'.

The weak link I fear is Phyllis Calvert. She is not entirely to blame as she has been lumbered with playing yet another 'nice' person. She herself said that it is more difficult to play 'good' than 'bad' and in this she does not succeed. Stewart Granger admitted in his autobiography that he and Miss Calvert managed to hide on screen the fact that they simply did not get on. Their lack of chemistry in the farewell scene of this film is all too obvious. Her scenes with Dennis Price also fail to convince. He is simply too 'camp' and is as miscast as an officer of Napoleon as he was to be as 'Bad Lord Byron'. Cecil Parker as Paganini's roguish manager Germi (fictional) effortlessly steals all of his scenes. One of the few non-fictional characters is Antonia Bianchi who is not a very good singer but has other attributes. Jean Kent is delightful in the role. As for Mr. Granger he does extremely well given the material whilst his stance, bowing and fingering are excellent following three months of tutoring. He has star quality in spades.

Paganini's music and that of Beethoven and Tartini, is played by Yehudi Menuhin. Ironically, many years later, one of his devotees said "Oh, maestro, you play just like Paganini." To which Menuhin replied "Have you ever heard Paganini?"

There are some good scenes but the film's weaknesses outweigh its strengths. It is simply too 'English' for its own good and lacks passion.

Regarding the passion, subsequent films have gone to the other extreme and shown Paganini to be as much a virtuoso in the boudoir as on the violin. How well cross-over violinist David Garrett or egomaniacal Klaus Kinski have served the genius of Paganini is a moot point. Let us just be grateful that he escaped the clutches of Ken Russell!