One Night of Love

Grace Moore stars in "One Night of Love," a 1934 movie also starring Tullio Carminati and Lyle Talbot. Carminati plays a renowned vocal teacher, Giulio Monteverdi, who takes a young aspiring opera singer, Maria Barrett, under his wing. Still scarred from a disastrous love affair with a former student, Monteverdi makes it clear that the word love must never be mentioned. Maria isn't worried; she believes she's in love with another (Lyle Talbot). Nevertheless, the two fall in love but don't admit it. When Monteverdi's old student reappears, Maria becomes jealous and turns into an uberdiva.

This delightful musical was a huge success - the operatic selections are wonderful, as is the title song, which was a big recording success for Moore. Moore's voice is absolutely beautiful. Female singers were trained a little differently in those days, often backing off of their high notes. Moore does a little of that but has a glorious extension above high C. Her best singing is in her rendition of "One Night of Love"; unfortunately, the opera selections sung by "Maria Barrett" were vocally wrong for this charming lyric coloratura. Moore herself has a nice warm presence on screen, though I read once that she had an unfortunate resemblance to the comedienne Joan Davis. From certain angles, that is true, but she was photographed carefully and looks lovely throughout the movie, slender and beautiful. Due to marrying a Frenchman and living part-time in France, working at her opera career, concertizing and eventually entertaining the troops, Moore only made 9 films. She died in a plane crash in 1947 at 49 years of age.

The opera selections were, as always, on the strange side. Only in Hollywood would a lyric coloratura with a weak lower register and no chest voice sing Carmen! From the sound, female singers also were not taught to do a mix on the lower notes. The role for Moore in Carmen is Micaela, which is indeed the role she played. Surprisingly, she also in real life did Tosca and Butterfly, which must have been total disasters. Her Butterfly, the finale of the film, is not good, particularly at the end. Her voice just isn't powerful enough, nor should it be - she wasn't a spinto or dramatic soprano or even a big lyric! The voice suffers, occasionally falling out of placement in the middle range. "Sempre Libera" was a series of wrong and skipped notes. And she scooped like crazy. This is nitpicking, but I would have preferred to hear some "La Boheme," Mimi being her Metropolitan Opera debut, or the Jewel Song from Faust, or Micaela's aria, all of which suited her voice perfectly, and all of which she sang during her career.

If you love opera, you'll love "One Night of Love" for its glorious music and the elegantly-voiced Grace Moore.

Probably the most watchable of opera singer Grace Moore's nine motion pictures, this one was a hit with audiences of the time as well. A love story about an aspiring opera singer, the movie contains thirteen songs, my favorite being "Ciri-Biri-Bin." Favorite line: "Italy! Why that place is full of Italians!"

After losing a radio contest, operatic singer Grace Moore (as Mary Barrett) decides to go to Italy and perfect her craft. Already quite impressive, she uses her vocal skills to win friends and influence the rent-collecting landlady. Working at a café, Ms. Moore meets singing maestro Tullio Carminati (as Giulio Monteverdi) and agrees to become his pupil. They move in together but agree not to have sex. "Business and love do not mix," asserts Mr. Carminati, who relinquished himself of attractive Mona Barrie (as Lally) when she wanted to make love...

The rejected woman re-enters the picture and handsome Lyle Talbot (as Bill Houston) is also around. He would like to marry Moore. All of this fluff is meant to showcase Moore, who acquits herself well after some less than blockbuster films for MGM. Moore received an "Oscar" nomination for her starring role. The "Academy" and "New York Times" also lauded co-star Carminati and director Victor Schertzinger. Moore's closing number is a highlight.

***** One Night of Love (9/5/34) Victor Schertzinger ~ Grace Moore, Tullio Carminati, Lyle Talbot, Mona Barrie

Unlike MGM's favorite soprano, JEANETTE MacDONALD, other singers from the Met tried screen careers at various times in the '30s, but none emerged winning enough as screen personalities to rival Jeanette. Columbia tried hard with GRACE MOORE and this is undoubtedly one of her better efforts at attaining screen stardom. TULLIO CARMINATI is amusingly persistent as her demanding voice coach who discovers her singing "Ciribiribin" in a cellar cafe before offering to become her tutor. LYLE TALBOT is her boyfriend with marriage on his mind. But the silly script has Miss Moore acting like a spoiled prima donna, cavorting with boyfriend Talbot while supposedly training for her big moment as "Carmen". A series of misunderstandings involving another woman, MONA BARRIE (strongly resembling Kay Francis), makes up much of the backstage part of the story and only weakens the overall film. Moore is fine whenever she's singing but the lip synch is way off during the final "Un Bel Di" and it's hard to see where her performance earned her an Oscar nomination for the acting part of her role. Summing up: A disappointment for me, regardless of glowing tributes from the other commentators on this particular film.

This is an uneven film, and there's lots wrong with it, some of which has been mentioned by other reviewers.

Rather than rehash all that, what I wanted to mention was the naturalness that Moore sometimes brings to her musical performances, a naturalness that makes them very engaging. The most notable case is probably Ciri-ciri-bin, where you can actually imagine the restaurant crowd joining in, so unpretentious is the whole thing. Some of the opera excerpts have that same quality, at least at times.

Some of that comes from Moore's stage personality, which at times does come off as the girl next door. Some of it, however, comes from the fact that her voice, at that point, was rock-solid and capable of remarkable things. In many ways, she was like a female Mario Lanza: she had the raw gift, she just didn't always put in the necessary work to bring it under control. Nevertheless, she goes sailing through some of her numbers with clear joy because she knows the notes will be there.

As I said, there are lots of problems with the movie. At times, her character seems like an interesting feminist willing to sacrifice to have a career. At other times, that all goes out the window.

The music is good here, and some of the performances at least partially captivating. Not a great movie, but one worth watching, at least once.