Die singende Stadt

If you have seen a film or two by veteran Italian director Carmine Gallone you will know that he was a master of the filmed musical performance.Not modern American style musicals with dancing as well as singing but rather stories often operatic in style staged around the delivery of older, classical music or bravura concert singing. Gallone's approach was often not to fix the camera on a performer but to move it around in a decorative fashion while we hear the sounds offscreen, showing us instead reactions of indoor listeners, settings or even outdoor scenery. In Die Singende Stadt this technique results in a rather fluid film for 1930.It was made in a British version as well with a slightly different cast which I have also seen but which I recall as being more stagey and less impressive.In it the Neapolitan singer played by Polish Ian Kiepura is lured away by the more bland Betty Stockfield (as opposed to that great silent style vamp Brigitte Helm in the German film) and is taken not to Vienna but to London. While the use of both German and Italian in the dialogue here is not always convincingly justified it adds a certain humor and charm to the proceedings especially in a comic opening scene where a heavy set middle aged German tourist gets into a pedantic argument over the proper use of "Mir" as opposed to "Mich."