O Rouxinol Mentiroso

Nice turn of the century film where Kathryn Grayson comes to N.Y. to sing in a joint. Her presence there threatens a scandal in her native Boston as her uncle is the Republican candidate for mayor of the town.

He comes with his wife to investigate and the fun starts. June Allyson is her sister and Jimmy Durante, the owner of the place where Grayson is singing. To save Grayson, Durante arranges for her to sing at the opera with the established Lauritz Melchior.

Peter Lawford, falls for Allyson but thinks that Grayson is having an affair with his father.

The picture becomes funny at times but needed technicolor to brighten it up.

Ben Blue is funny as a drunken waiter and Melchior shows some comedic gift here.

A pleasant film capturing the turn of the century musical traditions in America.

Here's a film that's a pleasure to view and hear. All departments work together, as does the talented cast, to make this a fun-filled experience.

Jimmy Durante ties the various comedic elements together with spunk and verve. Katheryn Grayson sings her operatic selections beautifully, yet it's her skill in the honky-tonk numbers that surprises and delights. Likewise June Allyson works smoothly on several levels, as does Peter Lawford.

The musical team has skillfully crafted operatic arias and montages for Lauriz Melchoir that shows off his glorious heldentenor marvelously. The entire production is fun-filled and thoroughly pleasant. It may seem like a modest effort, but there's a lot of solid craftsmanship at its core.

From 1946, "Two Sisters from Boston" stars Kathryn Grayson and June Allyson as -- well, two sisters from Boston at the turn of the century. Grayson is Abigail Chandler, who wants to make it as an opera singer in New York, but winds up singing with Spike (Jimmy Durante) in a burlesque house. When Martha (Allyson) comes to visit with their parents, Abigail claims that she's singing at the opera house, and they buy tickets.

Spike is an old hand at getting into places. He intimates to the staff that she is the girlfriend of a big patron, Patterson, and gets her into the chorus. Abigail incurs Olstrum's wrath when she keeps interpolating high notes during his aria.

Peter Lawford is Patterson's son Lawrence and is terribly upset when he thinks his father is having an affair with Abigail. That's straightened out, and Lawrence becomes interested in Martha. Now, how to keep his upper crust family from knowing that Abigail is High C Susie in a Burlesque house?

Sweet film, heartwarming, with Jimmy Durante hilarious as he pretends past scandalous associations with well-known people to get into places and get favors. June Allyson is delightful with her relaxed comedy that came out of her character. Peter Lawford - I can never get over how handsome he was. Kathryn Grayson had a very pretty voice though a screechy top and was charming as Abigail.

I just don't understand how anyone hired her for roles that absolutely, positively did not fit that fluttery light soprano: Apparently she performed La Boheme, La Traviata, and Madama Butterfly on the opera stage. No idea what they were thinking. She should have been singing Don Pasquale, Daughter of the Regiment, Mignon. As bad as Jeanette McDonald singing Tosca.

In this film, the studio took concertos for violin, etc., and turned them into classical music rather than having actual operas. The exception was in some of Lauritz Melchior's music. With the end of World War II before this movie began filming, he was able to sing Wagner once again. He was one of the greatest heldentenors who ever lived, and his specialty was in Wagnerian roles. Here he knocks your socks off with a sequence from Lohengrin and Preislied from Der Meistersinger. Magnificent.

The best sequence was Melchior's recording session where his dog sat in front of the megaphone-shaped phonograph in an exact replication of the RCA logo, and someone said, "His master's voice." Fabulous.

Fun movie. I wish they'd used some real operas, though, instead of "Marie Antoinette" which was really Violin Concerto in E Minor by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

I saw this movie for the first time about 40 years ago and loved it. It came on TCM today and I was afraid I was going to be disappointed. NOT AT ALL!!! If anything it is even better than I remembered. The script is really tight; no loose ends. Silly? Of course, but what wonderful silliness. And there is some pretty clever humor. Some serious laughs. The songs for it are pretty bad, but how much fun it was when MGM took classical music and used it as opera arias. Melchior is astounding in that the voice is so huge and so sweet and his diction in English, impeccable. Durante is lovable even when he gets a bit annoying. And Grayson really had a beauty that is unlike anyone else's; her singing style is a matter of taste. But as is often the case, June Allyson steals the show just by being herself. Her soubrette number near the end is adorable and in its own way very, very sweet! This is what they used to call a family musical. Thank God for Turner Classic Movies.

"Two Sisters from Boston" (1946) is an amusing mix of romance, comedy, and music. MGM's Pasternak unit skillfully hedged its bets by offering opera (Wagner and Liszt are represented, but in English), music hall ribaldry, and plenty of "cheesecake" -- i.e., feminine legs on display.

Kathryn Grayson and June Allyson play two Boston sisters from an upright Back Bay family. The family isn't poor, but the paterfamilias (a suitably dour Henry Hayden) is notoriously stingy. One of the sisters -- Abigail, played by Miss Grayson -- is allowed to go to New York to study opera. But her skinflint uncle doesn't give her enough expense money to pay her rent, so Abby takes a part-time job in a Bowery saloon, where she stars as "High C" Susie, singing with Spike (Jimmy Durante) in low-comedy skits.

Word gets out, and the outraged Bostonians travel south to New York to check out the rumors for themselves. There, the younger sister Martha (June Allyson) confronts Lawrence Patterson Jr. (Peter Lawford), son of the opera impresario, and demands to know what's happened to her sister. Lawrence Jr. is clueless, but he is instantly smitten with Martha, and from that point on he makes it his business to see that her sister Abigail gets an opera audition.

There is a lot of sly humor involved -- Jimmy Durante, in probably the best role of his career, covers for both Abigail and Martha in between hilarious bits on the stage of his Bowery auditorium. Ben Blue, who early in the film shows up at the saloon and heckles Durante during his act, turns out to be a staid butler at the Patterson mansion. Durante recognizes him and discovers that he has amnesia except when he is drunk. In a hilarious scene, Blue slowly gets in his cups, then blurts out to the startled Patterson family: "She's High C Susie! She's the Belle of the Bowery!" and points directly at Abigail, who's about to audition for the opera. But Martha is standing right next to Abby, and she declares to the shocked gathering that SHE, not Abigail, is the true "Belle of the Bowery." Now she has to prove it.

All this, plus at least three operatic arias by the great Danish baritone Lauritz Melchior, and a happy operatic debut by young Abigail. Lawrence Jr. attends Martha's game attempt to substitute for the Belle of the Bowery, sees through the artifice, and falls deeply in love with her. At the end, Abigail is seen singing gloriously on stage in full operatic regalia, while Lawrence Jr. and Martha are nuzzling in the box seats.

And a great time was had by all.

Dan Navarro -- daneldorado93@yahoo.com