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6.8/10
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The life story of the famous pianist and band leader of the 1930s and 1940s.The life story of the famous pianist and band leader of the 1930s and 1940s.The life story of the famous pianist and band leader of the 1930s and 1940s.
- Nominated for 4 Oscars
- 1 win & 6 nominations total
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe music was played by pianist Carmen Cavallaro in his own style. He had a completely different, and more technically precise, style of playing than Eddy Duchin had. The orchestral arrangements and style of playing are also anachronistic - Cavallaro's of the 1950s versus Duchin's, typical of the late 1920s and early 1930s. (Duchin's orchestra also included a tuba and banjo). If you listen to recordings by both, this is clearly evident.
- GoofsEddy Duchin suffered from acute myelogenous leukemia. This blood disease would not have created the hand paralysis shown in the movie. The paralysis was done for dramatic effect. Eddy Duchin died at Memorial Hospital in New York City on February 9, 1951. He was 41.
- Quotes
Eddy Duchin: What I want to know is why! Why do they have to destroy a man twice? You work and work and just when you get... everything. When it gets too good they take it away.
Eddy Duchin: Oh Chiquita, I don't want to die. I don't.
- ConnectionsFeatured in TCM Guest Programmer: Humberto Martinez (2017)
Featured review
Performers
Wow, what a mix of bad and good. The good is the music and the amazing period shots of New York. The bad... well just about anything else; its all rather poorly done. The script is particularly offensive; more about that in a moment. The acting is that goofy type which is unnatural, but not quite the unnatural stage style, more of a "read to the camera" style. Novak is pretty, but moves gracelessly.
The story they have chosen to tell is a simple one: we learn to love a man through his ambition, gains, losses, sorrow and regaining of humanity after the war. This is about America after the war, not some pianist. Then sorrow strikes again and he handles it so wonderfully you applaud while crying. At least that's the goal and it probably worked for most viewers when this was new and America was trying to cope with post war loss.
Something closer to the real story would have made a killer movie. Duchin was made famous by his recording that was the first use of the F-work in that medium. His first wife did die, but he was hardly grief-stricken a famous womanizer. He did leave his boy with Averill Harriman's wife when he went to war. But that was because he was sleeping with her, while her husband was off in England sleeping (and finally marrying) another man's wife. The son of Winston Churchill in fact, so Harriman hardly cared about his wife's affair with a New York celebrity.
Harriman was an amazing character through the period of this story. He, Dulles and Marshall shaped the world after the war in a liberal mold, essentially reforming Europe as a unit and building NATO, which for many decades was a very good thing. His presence through this movie as sort of an avuncular figure would be like having John Kennedy as a butler. The loss of the power-as-sex game and music-as-power thrust sort of waters down the whole thing.
Why do I care? Because Harriman was particularly concerned about rebuilding France, a country that had humiliated itself and had no means to rebuild. It was, as now, an agricultural economy and Harriman couldn't see Americans subsidizing French farmers for decades. So he (his staff, yes Democrats) came up with the ideas of romanticizing Paris and Rome. Make them romantic cities that tourists would visit. They surely were not before the war. Paris had had its day as a center of art but never ever of romance.
The plan was pulled off flawlessly, primarily through subsidies to Hollywood to make films that portrayed Paris romantically. Many of those films were from the same period of this film, an extreme irony. Extreme, you know.
Harriman's first wife, the one playing with Duchin, had cheated on and left her first husband as well, an extremely wealthy fellow who just happened to be the financier of Technicolor which we find our self enjoying in this very film.
Oh well, there is the music, How can you fault any film that starts with Chopin?
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
The story they have chosen to tell is a simple one: we learn to love a man through his ambition, gains, losses, sorrow and regaining of humanity after the war. This is about America after the war, not some pianist. Then sorrow strikes again and he handles it so wonderfully you applaud while crying. At least that's the goal and it probably worked for most viewers when this was new and America was trying to cope with post war loss.
Something closer to the real story would have made a killer movie. Duchin was made famous by his recording that was the first use of the F-work in that medium. His first wife did die, but he was hardly grief-stricken a famous womanizer. He did leave his boy with Averill Harriman's wife when he went to war. But that was because he was sleeping with her, while her husband was off in England sleeping (and finally marrying) another man's wife. The son of Winston Churchill in fact, so Harriman hardly cared about his wife's affair with a New York celebrity.
Harriman was an amazing character through the period of this story. He, Dulles and Marshall shaped the world after the war in a liberal mold, essentially reforming Europe as a unit and building NATO, which for many decades was a very good thing. His presence through this movie as sort of an avuncular figure would be like having John Kennedy as a butler. The loss of the power-as-sex game and music-as-power thrust sort of waters down the whole thing.
Why do I care? Because Harriman was particularly concerned about rebuilding France, a country that had humiliated itself and had no means to rebuild. It was, as now, an agricultural economy and Harriman couldn't see Americans subsidizing French farmers for decades. So he (his staff, yes Democrats) came up with the ideas of romanticizing Paris and Rome. Make them romantic cities that tourists would visit. They surely were not before the war. Paris had had its day as a center of art but never ever of romance.
The plan was pulled off flawlessly, primarily through subsidies to Hollywood to make films that portrayed Paris romantically. Many of those films were from the same period of this film, an extreme irony. Extreme, you know.
Harriman's first wife, the one playing with Duchin, had cheated on and left her first husband as well, an extremely wealthy fellow who just happened to be the financier of Technicolor which we find our self enjoying in this very film.
Oh well, there is the music, How can you fault any film that starts with Chopin?
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
helpful•1717
- tedg
- Feb 4, 2007
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Prica o Ediju Ducinu
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime2 hours 3 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 2.55 : 1
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