It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Tonight We Sing (1953) – Musical #833

Studio:
20th Century Fox

Director:
Mitchell Leisen

Starring:
David Wayne, Ezio Pinza, Roberta Peters, Anne Bancroft, Tamara Toumanova, Isaac Stern, Byron Palmer, Jan Peerce, Oskar Karlweis, Mikhail Rasummy, Steven Geray, Walter Woolf King,

Plot:
A biographical film based on the life of impresario, Sol Hurok (Wayne). Hurok shaped the careers of many top performers from ballet dancer Anna Pavlova (Toumanova), violinist Eugene Ysaye (stern) or Isadora Duncan.

Trivia:
• Based Sol Hurok’s 1946 autobiography, “Impresario.”
• Produced by George Jessel
• Working titles include “Impresario,” “The Hurok Story,” “Heaven for Sale,” “Stars in My Pocket,” “The Music Maker” and “The Music Master.”
• Gregory Ratoff, Jean Negulesco and Henry Koster were originally announced at different times to direct this project.
• Jose Ferrer and Danny Thomas were considered to play Sol Hurok. The role went to David Wayne.
• Pianist-conductor Sergei Malavsky was the technical advisor for the Russian operatic scenes, and also appeared in the picture in a bit part.
• The film’s choreographer, David Lichine, was once a dance partner of Anna Pavlova, who is portrayed by Tamara Toumanova in the film.
• Final feature film of Ezio Pinza.
• Opera singer Jan Peerce dubbed the singing of Byron Palmer

Highlights:
• Technicolor cinematography
• Ballet performance by Tamara Toumanova as Anna Pavlova
• Ann Bancroft’s costumes
• Roberta Peters

Notable Songs:
• “Sweet and Low” performed by an unidentified singer
• “The Swan” performed by Tamara Toumanova
• “Sempre libera” performed by Roberta Peters
• “Madame Butterfly” performed by Byron Palmer dubbed by Jan Peerce
• “Faust” performed by Enzio Pinza

Byron Palmer and Roberta Peters 

My review:
Prior to watching TONIGHT WE SING (1953), I wasn’t familiar with producer and impresario Sol Hurok. But I am well familiar with performers that Hurok promoted: from ballerina Anna Pablova, ballerina Margot Fonteyn, dancer Isadora Duncan, dancer Katherine Dunham, or violinist Efrem Zimbalist.

With the caliber of talent that Hurok supported, you would think he would be as well known as Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. You would also think he could get a better biopic – on the same level as Ziegfeld did. Unfortunately, TONIGHT WE SING is not a very good musical biopic.

The film details how as a child, Hurok wanted to be a musician but his teacher told him he wasn’t good enough. As an adult, Hurok (Wayne) goes in and out of jobs, but eventually fulfills his dream of being involved with the arts. He begins finding and promoting talent. As he gets more involved with his performers, he neglects his wife, Emma (Bancroft).

I felt like while films about Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. make it very clear about what he does as an impresario, for some reason, TONIGHT WE SING doesn’t tell the story well.

I also have a hot take: I like David Wayne and he’s a good actor, but I’m not sure he’s leading man material. He’s better as a supporting actor. He feels miscast here, especially since he tries to have some sort of accent in this.

Ann Bancroft plays a small, thankless role as Hurok’s wife. However, the thanklessness of the role works. The character of Emma is often neglected and ignored by her husband, and Bancroft plays the lonely, dissatisfied wife well. I liked this change, because often in these films, the wife stands by smiling.

Other than Wayne, Bancroft, ballet dancer Tamara Toumanova and singer Enzio Pinza, I wasn’t familiar with most of the cast.

While I truthfully felt that this film was overall week, I will say that the opera and ballet numbers are really beautiful. Tamara Toumanova performs wonderful numbers as Anna Pavlova. It’s also filmed in vibrant Technicolor.

Running at only 100 minutes, this somehow felt very long and then ended abruptly.

I think it’s interesting that 20th Century Fox made really stunning musicals, particularly during the World War II era. For whatever reason, many of their post-war musicals don’t capture the same magic and fall flat, just like this one.

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