This is one of those interesting misfires that happens when no one is looking because no one is quite sure what story they want to tell. Is it the story of a young Irish woman anxious to make good in the world of opera in fashionable Paris? A showcase for a opera diva in the pre-war years? One of a woman who sacrifices everything for her art? The story of how the Great War destroys everything for one woman? The sad tale of a washed-up artist unwilling to let go of past glories? You might cram all of them into a novel, and possibly into a three-act play that might please a contemporary audience, but it's too much to stick into a movie. It's too crammed with details, with great songs, with great performances, with great montages, with great thises and great thats for the audience to catch its breath.
Evelyn Laye is Maggie O'Neill in Ireland. She runs away with Emlyn Williams to Paris, he to study music, she to study opera. Boom! She is ready for her audition and Williams is going to shoot her because she is going to leave him, but her singing is so wonderful, he writes her a note and leaves. Boom! She reinvents herself as Madame Irela! Montage of triumph, with showers of gold coins! Boom! Affair with Austrian Archduke, who insists on marrying her, but World War One is Declared! Boom! Victor Saville is in charge of this great mass of plot and music and acting and he does much better than you could imagine from what I've written up there, thanks, in no small part, to some superb montage work by Otto Ludwig. Also praiseworthy is the performance of Fritz Kortner as Miss Laye's impresario. In fact, there is nothing in this movie that is not, in itself, good. It's just that there's just too much of it.
