Melody for Three

Twelve years ago, Fay Wray was a music student in Paris. She got married and divorced to Walter Woolf King, then she returned to America to become a music teacher in Doctor Christian's town, and raise the son King never knew she bore. The son has grown into a violin prodigy like his father, and guess who shows up in town, engaged to Astrid Allwyn?

The next to last of the Doctor Christian series, Jean Hersholt is more an observer than a participant in the story, which includes a goodly amount of classical music and a pretty good cast. Schuyler Standish plays the fiddle pretty good for a 14-year-old.

The series could have gone on for more than one additional film, but Hersholt was getting tired of the role and movie acting; he would appear in only four more movies , even though he would continue on as radio's Doctor Christian until 1954. He still had his humanitarian work, as well as his translations of Hans Christian Andersen and scholarly work on his fellow Dane.

We may know someone because his face appears on a movie screen, but that is not the totality of a man. Jean Hersholt died in 1956 at the age of 69. Those privileged to know him mourned the loss of a good man.

The fifth of the six Dr. Christian films finds the kindly old doc taking an interest in a young man he's known all his life. Young Billy Stanley played by Schuyler Standish is a violin prodigy, nurtured carefully by his mother Fay Wray who is a local music teacher in River's End. It's in the genes because Standish's father is the noted conductor Walter Woolf King who Wray was married to back in their salad days ever so briefly. Of course the young man doesn't know King is his father.

Practicing no medicine in this film but caring a great deal about the welfare of his patients, mother and son, Jean Hersholt stops at nothing to bring about a reconciliation after King's plane crash lands in River's End.

There is a hilarious performance by Irene Ryan as a rival music teacher who brings all her pupils to the hospital for an 'audition'. The din they raise would cause a relapse with any music lover.

The film begins with Brahms and ends with Brahms as some of his gypsy dances get a fine treatment. A bit contrived, but a fine story.

I have finally found the title to this 1941 film after many searches! Now, if I could only find out where to purchase, or view this little gem once again... I vividly remember seeing this movie in the church hall of my small hometown, when I was 11 or 12 years old. In spite of the rattling and clicking sound of the Bell and Howell 16mm projector, the wonderful music in the soundtrack impressed me. The story was appealingly told and even as youngster, the emotional impact of the boy dealing with the divorce of his parents made me most sympathetic.

I was learning piano at the time and a friend, the violin. To our great surprise, the young boy in the film's finale dazzlingly executed variations on Brahms' Hungarian Dance No.5 - a piece my friend was attempting to learn. I hoped the credits would reveal the name of the actual performer, and then find a 78 rpm recording of it at the local record shop. I never did find it, but in time I did get to appreciate the art of the film's classical violinist, Toscha Siedel. His name is still well etched in my mind after nearly 60 years!

Another exciting portion depicted in the film was the boy visiting a large US city. While visitng a recording studio there, he was shown and demonstrated the new far fetched invention, television. My, I then thought of this as pure science fiction. There is not much else I can describe but these two special moments remain vividly in my memory. Now, to keep looking and praying it will be issued on DVD some day.. Dreaming? I hope not.

ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTED! NEWLY RELEASED AND DVD FOUND ON EBAY. AFTER A 60 YEAR WAIT, TIME TO POP THE CHAMPAGNE!(Revision Added July 4th,2006)