Customer Reviews

Song O My Heart [VHS]

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Remember that "Song O' My Heart" was filmed in 1929, in the infancy of sound recording for films. Just being able to see and hear the great John McCormack, in any form, is a wonder. Above all, McCormack's great warmth comes across. He was doubtless a great singing actor as well as a great singer. "I Hear You Calling Me," despite the age of the recording, reveals a voice of pure gold and a technique you will not hear from the much heralded "Three Tenors" or any of the other tenors pushing and straining their arias for our jaded contemporary tastes. I hesitate to recommend this gem to young people who are so easily bored by sentiment, but I do recommend this film to anyone old enough to appreciate a tug at the heartstrings. Thank God it is still possible to feel and appreciate a golden voice from the past, even if it is showcased in a simple story touched with just enough emotion to remind us what it meant to be human.

"Song O' My Heart" must be in the collection of any lover of outstanding singing. This special vehicle for the premier singer of art and popular songs of the 1910s and 1920s encapsulates John McCormack's art in a unique way ... that what we have always had as purely aural pleasure on records and CDs is here preserved in visual form, a memento of an earlier day, and a clear indication of why our grandparents - and now, so many of us -- so loved and love this particular artist.

Plenty has been written about McCormack the singer. I can only say that his singing in this 1929-30 film is of its time, i.e., when the singer was 45 years old, and thus without the brilliant flexibility and range of what is available on recordings from the 1910-1920 era. (Note: Anyone wishing to delve further MUST get examples of the singer from this period to appreciate the purity and breath control, the sheer beauty of the finest of lyric tenor voices.) But, as McCormack aged, an added dimension entered his voice, of great pathos and depth, bent notes and husky phrasing on significant words, that make one forget (well, not entirely!) the athletic tenor of the teens. All the McCormack trademarks are here: The clear diction, the passionate phrasing (yes, I said passionate, despite some smart aleck critics of the day who said his singing "lacked testosterone"), and the pianissimo final high notes that so often characterized his offerings. Here, we have them in, above all, "I Hear You Calling Me," but also in "Kitty My Love Will You Marry Me," and "A Pair of Blue Eyes." Did I forget the touching "A Fairy Story By the Fire," sung under a tree to a bevy of little children in an on-location scene by a meandering Irish river? That soft, high ending note, sung off camera with the view firmly on the faces of the children, glows and grows, and their faces light with amazement and delight. To see this effect on the faces of children, a reaction to art of the highest sort, told in simplicity and love, is perhaps the most touching part of this film. All the singing was done "on location"; that is, before it became the practice to record in a studio and match it to the film and the singer's lips. Thus, we have a true document in addition to an enjoyable melodramatic story.

A word on the film itself and its story. It is a scratchy heirloom, but we are fortunate to have it at all. The dialogue is sometimes obscured by wear, in particular since most all the actors are Irish and offer heavy brogues. However, the singing never is; it appears that McCormack's voice could overpower even the vicissitudes of time. The story is simple: A once-famous opera singer, Sean O'Carolon, has given up his career to live in his old Irish village, near his former love, Mary, who had been forced to marry someone else "for money, not love." Mary, now abandoned and with two children, struggles in poverty, and in the home of a horrid relation. Sean decides to resume his career as a concert singer, presumably (but not stated) to help Mary and perhaps resume their romance. Pathos ensues, and all does not end quite so happily ... but happily enough.

A lengthy segment of the movie is given over to an actual concert, purportedly in New York City but actually filmed on location in Philharmonic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles, a massive auditorium of the old "Hippodrome" variety. It is impossible to too-highly praise this sequence ... McCormack sings in English, German, Italian and French, and throws in "I Hear You Calling Me," his greatest hit, as an encore. The highlight of this "concert" is "Ireland, Mother Ireland," a blockbuster emotional offering that will raise the hairs on your neck with its conviction and art. Between the first chorus and the second verse, McCormack is visually shaken, blinking and gathering his resources for the ending. This is not acting. It is a monument.

The actors are fine: the teenage Maureen O'Sullivan in her first movie, and later Jane of the Johnny Weissmuller "Tarzan" movies, is given pretty stiff words to say, but she is luminous as the teen daughter of Mary. You can't take your eyes off her! And what a sexpot she is in the final scene, after her marriage to the local beau, with her eyes aslant in anticipatory ardor! A couple of Irish character actors do little shticks for local color. Edwin Schneider, McCormack's real piano accompanist, plays the part of Sean's piano accompanist, and handles it well. A pure delight is Effie Ellsler as Mona, a warm old woman who cared for Sean when he was an orphan, and now keeps his home. Her final denunciation of the horrid relation who has made life so sad for so many is satisfying, true, and clear. The director, Frank Borzage tells the story beautifully; when words or actions are not necessary, he allows eyes and tableaux to speak volumes (perhaps these were silent film holdovers, but they work wondrously). Borzage was the Academy Award winner for direction in 1927 ("Seventh Heaven"), and later directed Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes in "A Farewell to Arms."

Apparently the film was not a commercial success. But we owe a great debt to Miles Kreuger, who discovered it in the Fox vaults, and shepherded showings of the movie in New York in the 1970s. It is overdue for a restoration, true. But if this is all we have for now, it is more than enough.

The movie is a good one. It sidesteps the phoniness of the usual "Irish" themed Hollywood studio movies ("Little Nelly Kelly" (MGM) comes to mind). Maureen O'Sullivan's dialogue is very stilted, but everyone else performs well, considering that this film comes from the first year of all-talking pictures. Especially John McCormack comes across well; his charm and amazing voice are on full desplay here. Borrowing this movie from the library turned me on to him. Here's the Problem, though : This edition (which is also the one I saw) is very disappointing in that not only is the picture quality not very good, but what's really devastating is that, the sound is thin, tinny, sour, and off-pitch?; just about as bad as you can imagine. I am used to the sonic limitations of early sound-on- film : that's not the problem here. The sound should not sound like this. I don't know why the sound is so bad. Are the only surviving sound elements in this poor a condition that they cannot be restored to a quality comparable with that of other contemporaneous films? If so that is a tragedy.

As of December this film is available on DVD fully restored via Murnau, Borzage and Fox Box Set. Yes the price will make you say yikes, but so will what people are asking for VHS copies of this film that has scratchy video and poor sound.

I viewed this film in the Murnau/Borzage set just last night and the restoration is 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 intertitles for the dialogue 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.

In short, I highly recommend the restored version of this film. The transfer looks great and the audio is superb. Let the scalpers use their overpriced low quality VHS copies for doorstops.