Song of Norway

SONG OF NORWAY is an unbearably dull musical pastiche of clichés heard in every musical ever made that purported to be the saga of a composer's struggles to find recognition for his music. Edvard Grieg's struggles are so dull as to be non-stop in this awful compilation of Norwegian scenery by the truckload with no story to carry it.

It is notable that the man who plays Grieg, TORALV MAURSTAD, never did make another American film, so disastrous were the reviews and box-office for this dull saga. Note also that FLORENCE HENDERSON was not able to make another film in Hollywood but went directly to television and stayed there for a very successful run on "The Brady Bunch". See the film and you will judge yourself why it was an abject failure. And don't be fooled by the presence of OSKAR HOMOLKA, EDWARD G. ROBINSON and ROBERT MORLEY in the cast. They have little or nothing to do.

Music lovers may be enchanted by Grieg's works, but not the way they are presented here. Nor is there any resemblance between the zestful SOUND OF MUSIC and its picturesque way of dealing with the Von Trapp Singers and this dull as dishwater musical that would work better as a travelogue of Norway with the plot excised.

See it at your own risk.

This wretched film was inflicted upon me at a weekend house party, when the hosts insisted that we all watch this "absolutely lovely movie" together. Imagine being trapped for 2 and a half hours with a VIDEO of this travesty, on a small TV screen, seeking brief respites ("could you pause it while I visit the 'facility'?"), having to mumble polite monosyllables of assent in response to the hosts' appalling praise of what turned out to be absolute drivel. The film does have exquisite scenery...Norway's a beautiful country! It has lovely music...Grieg was a decent enough composer! It also has the most atrociously awful acting (the lead is one Toralv Maurstad, who has mercifully vanished from sight, Florence Henderson is in this, for Pete's sake---and what on earth are Robert Morley, Edward G. Robinson, Oscar Homolka, and Harry Secombe doing in this?), a sophomoric (or worse) script, amateurish direction, incompetent film editing. And it is SO BORING!!!! No, it's worse than boring, it is profoundly IRRITATING in its boredom.

I had great expectations when this film opened with beautiful scenery and masterful cinematography. Norway is truly spectacular. I thought it would be very refreshing to watch a film that didn't rely on special effects, but sorrowfully my expectations soon gave way to mind boggling reality.

The pacing was slow, the dialogue was forced, "real" reactions were practically nonexistent, even from the stand-ins, kids, dancers and supporting actors who were used more like set pieces than human beings. The directorial style was old fashioned Rome opera. Traditionally in Rome, the singers rarely move. They just plant their feet and sing, and the chorus is draped around them. The sound is great, but the dramatic elements are totally sublimated to the music. I think they tried to do the same here, but what's good for Rome sure ain't good for the movies! Frank Porretta as Richard Nordraak touches me with his gorgeous voice, and he reads well on screen, but his character, like the rest, lacked any depth.

Once footage was "in the can" scenes were chopped up like confetti. Smooth transitions, probably 86'd for the sake of the score, were the first to go. Our "suspension of disbelief" was shattered continually. The sound was also very uneven, and the choreography was quite stilted and cloned from just about any Rogers and Hammerstein film. "Production numbers" just meant more people on stage, crammed into boxcars if necessary, and "don't let them move around too much". oi. They even teamed Florence Henderson up with a gang of "cute kids" who had absolutely no personalities, and had her stomp through the town singing ala "Sound of Music". Nothing worked.

How Edward G. Robinson managed to retain his dignity in this horrible flick is a total mystery. The leading men might have done well as characters in "Mr. Ripley" if only their makeup had been feathered into the hairlines. Florence was lovely and animated and saved the day as best as she could. The costumes were obviously high budget as was the film itself, but budget alone could not save this unfortunate disaster.

I saw this as a little kid taking piano lessons and loving Grieg's music. (That was in San Francisco - maybe I saw it at the same theater, the Paramount, as one of our earlier commenters?) All of 10 years old, I enjoyed it thoroughly. I suppose I wasn't a great judge of acting at that point, or of cinema in general (it was probably the third or fourth theatrical film I'd seen in my life at that point). So it was basically the music, voices, and scenery I was chewing on. I hadn't even heard the name "Carol Brady" then.

Haven't seen the film since, but I just wonder ... terrible compared to what? The soundtrack (a few cuts I have on a Grieg compilation) is miles better than the nursery-rhymes in Sound of Music, and for the most part the transliterated lyrics aren't a travesty. Florence Henderson doesn't make me gag any more than Julie Andrews or any other too-clean-and-scrubbed actor in the business. And what's wrong with casting an actual Norwegian as Grieg instead of ... I dunno, from the same era ... George Peppard? The movie even had a nice animated sequence for the kids.

Song of Norway was unlucky enough to arrive at the absolute tail end of the road-show-spectacular era of movie musicals, and I'm sure a lot of critics just had indigestion by that point, following Paint Your Wagon (with a singing, dancing Clint Eastwood!), Camelot (a singing, non-dancing Richard Harris!), The Happiest Millionaire (a singing, dancing Fred MacMurray!), and Darling Lili (Dame Julie's nadir). So what's so much worse about Song of Norway?

Got something against Scandinavian composers?!

The team of Robert Wright and Chet Forrest adapted the music of Edvard Grieg into a biographical operetta as they later did for Alexander Borodin in Kismet and it ran on Broadway for 860 performances in 1944-46.

In many ways the film shows imagination. The location cinematography in Norway and Denmark is spectacular and obviously influenced by the Sound Of Music as are the musical numbers. There's an animated sequence involving In The Hall Of The Mountain King that is most imaginative.

But the pace is that of escargot. The actors get no real direction at all. Some movie scene stealers like Edward G. Robinson and Oscar Homolka and Robert Morley have their own bag of tricks which are used.

The plot is simply promising composer Edvard Grieg is forbidden marriage to Christina Schollin by her rich dad Robert Morley. He marries Florence Henderson who sings well and probably was hoping she'd break into the big screen stardom after years on the Brady Bunch. The bad reviews Song Of Norway got killed any chance of that. Schollin who never married becomes Grieg's patron instead.

Toralv Maurstad is a big name in Norwegian cinema. But this also killed his career for international stardom.

But if you like the music of Grieg, Song of Norway is for you.