O Grande Caruso

By far the best thing about 'The Great Caruso' is not its stodgy script or its slightly silly plot (not very likely that much of this equates to the true story of Enrico Caruso, the first opera star to have his voice immortalised for all time), but the first rate singing throughout. Mario Lanza of course was a great asset to MGM through the late 1940s and early 1950s, with a fabulous voice and an attractive personality on the screen. This film also gives us the opportunity to see the lovely Dorothy Kirsten, who seems to have made very few films, and a sweet performance from Ann Blyth as the main love interest for Caruso.

We watch the young Enrico (played with charm by Peter Edward Price) grow into an enterprising young man who realises his voice is potentially his fortune. As the young talent flourishes and develops we follow his rise to fame through to his eventual inevitable ending. I didn't get much sense that the character we were seeing in this film was 'Caruso'; having heard his recordings he projected a very different personality than that we see in Lanza; still, this production is entertaining enough.