Song o' My Heart

As of December 2008 this film is available on DVD fully restored via the Murnau Borzage Fox Box Set. The restoration is indeed wonderful. There is both a full sound version and a sound effects/music version available. The full sound version is just that - a talking picture. The sound effects version has what was available before synchronized speech could be completely accomplished. There are inter-titles for the dialog and John McCormack's wonderful Irish tenor voice is wonderfully reproduced. There are synchronized sound effects for such things as the church bells.

The plot is very thin. McCormack plays a man who has never married because he was denied the love of his life - Mary - when she married a man for his money at her aunt's insistence twenty years before. Now that man has run off and left her and her two children penniless. Ironically Mary and her children must now move back in with Mary's aunt, a rather bloodless creature who refuses to let Mary's oldest daughter see her true love, Fergus, because he is poor. McCormack gets an offer to sing in concert in America, and he finally decides to leave the Irish village he was born in and in which he has always lived. This sets up the best part of the film, the long concert performance of McCormack that is a pretty good reproduction of the kind of performance he actually gave to live audiences. This film is also notable for being the second role for Maureen O'Sullivan in a motion picture. Her debut was in "So This is London", but that film is lost. Highly recommended to fans of the early talkies and of McCormack's wonderful voice.

1929-1930 were not great years for musicals, though Hollywood made a ton of them around that time. I think most of the reason was because sound was such a novel thing, the film producers thought the best way to show off this medium was to make musical after musical. Unfortunately, but today's standards most of them are pretty poor and stiff. Part of this is because sound technology has improved. In 1929-1930, orchestras literally sat next to the actors just off camera to provide the music as the film was being made--producing less than satisfactory results. In addition, sound technicians often ordered actors to stay in one place so they could adequately record what they were saying. Additionally, the film makers hadn't yet learned that there is more to a musical than playing music and having people sing. Many of these films didn't integrate the songs into the film well at all and the film lacked style. "Song O' My Heart" is a prime example, as it makes many mistakes that you'd never see in musicals just a year or two later.

--There is no incidental music. Films of 1929-30 were strangely quiet and devoid of background music and songs were only used when people were singing.

--People are amazingly stiff and dancing simply wasn't done. A lot of this was due to poor sound equipment but also because I really don't think they thought to do this.

--Song after song after song after song are sung without regard to the pacing of the film or plot. Simply put, at times this film overwhelmed the audience with singing. In one case, at a concert, it goes on and on and on. And, when the leading man is supposedly at home in the village, people keep stopping him again and again to ask him to sing--and it looks more like a vaudeville review than real life or a film!

--There is no variety--just lots and lots and lots of Irish ballades...which is great if you love this type of music. If you don't, it's a chore despite John McCormack's lovely voice.

So, as a musical, this movie really stinks. However, there are other things to admire. The look of the Irish village is terrific and the film, when there is no singing, is very sentimental and sweet. The director, Frank Borzage, showed his skills in every way except when it came to the singing. And, as a curio, it's nice to see Maureen O'Sullivan in her first film. It's interesting to see how much she changed in subsequent films--here she is far from glamorous and it's hard to recognize her at first.

I would say by today's standards this film earns a 3 (at best). And, compared to other films of the day, it earns a 5--perhaps a 6. My score of 4 is in line with how much true film nuts would like the film--particularly those who are fans of classic Hollywood.

By the way, the DVD from Fox includes both the full sound version and the version that is mostly silent along with singing portions (which was much like the original "Jazz Singer"). I must admit that while I am a real film nut myself, I just couldn't bring myself to see both versions--it just wasn't that good a film.

In John McCormack's feature film debut a rather sentimental story was chosen for him and quite frankly his character is something of a romantic fool. A promising concert singer, McCormack gives it up to be near his lost love Alice Joyce. Years ago her maiden witch of an aunt broke up Joyce and McCormack and forced to marry a rich man. Now that rich man has deserted her and their children Maureen O'Sullivan and Tommy Clifford. And now the aunt played by Emily Fitzroy is interfering with O'Sullivan's romance with young, poor, but earnest John Garrick.

McCormack has the most undemanding role of a concert singer and while he's no great actor the public was paying to see the singer to which he obliged them with fourteen numbers. Together with Enrico Caruso, John McCormack made the phonograph record industry a success. You could not find an Irish-American family which did not have a phonograph and a few McCormack records to play.

Also in Song o' My Heart McCormack was not cast as a youthful person, that would have been ludicrous. He plays a bit younger than his actual age which was in his Fifties, but he's believable.

The story itself was wistful, romantic, tragic and above all Irish. A couple of Hollywood's best character players from the Auld Sod, J.M. Kerrigan and J. Farrell MacDonald are a couple of village rustics who are entertaining in their blarney.

John McCormack still has many fans and this film is for them.

This is not a great movie. It isn't really a very good one, frankly. I can't imagine any reason to watch it other than to see John McCormack. If you like McCormack, however, it is not to be missed and, while he's on screen, very enjoyable. Unlike so many other opera singers who have taken a turn on the silver screen, McCormack is very natural and relaxed. He's fun to watch and, when he sings something good - which is too often not the case, alas - a joy to hear.

Much of what he sings is, in fact, forgettable. But there are two numbers that make time stand still. The first is the Rose of Tralee. It's not great music, perhaps, but McCormack makes each note a perfectly polished gem in one perfectly arranged necklace. It is nice music elevated by great art to a very moving moment.

And then there is I hear you calling me, the most successful of all McCormack's many successes. This is beautiful music set to a perfect text. And then performed as no song has ever been performed before or since. Yes, perhaps one of his 78 rpm versions is even better, but the version in this film is already great enough to make time, and breath, stop. The song tells a story, and you follow it as it unfolds. In the last verses, when he goes up to the suspended high note on "I hear you CALLING me," you would think that you in fact heard his beloved calling him from beyond the grave. It makes you understand why Caruso envied McCormack his pianissimos.

The rest of the movie is a forgettable hodge-podge. There is a love story between O'Sullivan and a handsome young man. You don't care, because O'Sullivan, who speaks with perfect English diction that makes you wonder what she's doing in Ireland, keeps looking at the camera instead of the people whom she is, in principle, addressing. There is also a pair of Irish comedians - who aren't at all funny. And there's a nasty old spinster aunt making life difficult for orphans. The only thing other than McCormack worth any notice is the actress who plays Mona, generally pleasant and extremely enjoyable when she tells off Aunt Elizabeth - in a speech that will come back 9 years later when Auntie Em tells off Elvira Gultch in the Wizard of Oz.

So, if you like McCormack, make sure to catch this. If you have no idea who he is but want to see the original "Irish tenor," you might enjoy it as well. Otherwise, it's just another forgettable piece of celluloid.

I would just mention that there are actually *two* versions of this film: the sound ("talkie")version and a part sound / part silent (with titles) version (this was at the dawn of the "talkie" era when people such as Laurel & Hardy had sound and silent versions of their films).

The difference here is not only dialogue vs. title cards, but the two versions are edited a bit differently (true of the Laurel & Hardy hybrids, too).

In the part sound / part silent version, there is no dialogue but you do get all the John McCormack singing.

This movie is a real creaker and it badly needs restoring, but I give it 8 points for: 1) Irish location filming. 2) It's Maureen O'Sullivan's film debut. 3) The John McCormack concert sequence. 4) In the talkie version there's a Irish "vaudeville" bit at the beginning.