Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

morrison-dylan-fan Getting lucky in catching the charming 1951 movie Two Tickets to Broadway,I decided to keep a look out for other similar titles appearing on the BBC. Finding the only DVD around to be a Warner Archives edition that would cost £15 to import (!) I was happy to spot that the BBC iPlayer had an obscure gem,which led to me getting ready to perform a morning song.The plot:Becoming blind from an accident, classical musician Dan Evans sinks into dark seedy clubs where Evans is paid in beer and burgers. Catching some of his act at a slightly more up-market club, socialite Cathy Mallory asks Evans if she can become his benefactor.Still bitter about his blindness,Evans rejects the offer.Shortly after his exchange with Mallory,Evans quits the club. Keen to track him down,Mallory gets bandleader Chick Morgan to arrange a secret encounter between them. Wanting Evans to feel that she understands where he is coming from,Mallory changes her name to Mary Willey,and pretends to be blind.View on the film:Learning to play the piano for the film, Dana Andrews gives an excellent performance as Evans,whose joy behind a piano Andrews makes sing,which masks the blind bitterness that Andrews covers Evans eyes with off-stage. Trying to stop Evans from catching her real sight, Merle Oberon gives a terrific performance as Mallory,with Oberon lapping up Mallory's Melodrama glamour with a breezy,loved up atmosphere.Taking some big leaps in the credibility of Evans and Mallory's romance,the screenplay by Frank Fenton/Dick Irving Hyland & DeWitt Bodeen shade some of the gaps in by allowing Evans to open up about the darkness around him,which never becomes bitterly melodramatic,thanks to the writers retaining a playfulness between Evans and Mallory. Crisply showing Andrews play Evans music,director John Cromwell and cinematographer Lucien Ballard looks into his eyes by engulfing the nightclubs in striking low- lighting which reflect Evans view. Stepping on the beach,Cromwell gives the romance a stylish elegance of overlapping images opening the love between Evans and Mallory,as the night song sings.

writers_reign In a brief triumph of hope over knowledge I entertained fleetingly the notion that this just might be a movie version of Cliff Odets' Night Music, his 1940 play whose failure in 1940 led to the demise of the charismatic Group Theatre out of which emerged so many lustrous talents both behind - Odets himself, Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan - and in front of the camera - Kazan again, Lee J. Cobb, Franchot Tone, John Garfield. In the event, of course, Night Song is a totally different affair improbably cast and with more holes than a Swiss cheese - for example Hoagy Carmichael leads a 'swing' band with a residency in a night club in San Francisco in which Dana Andrews is the blind pianist; we never hear the band playing anything remotely resembling swing and after the first reel we never see the band or the club again concentrating instead on the unlikely quartet comprising the two men plus Merle Oberon and Ethel Barrymore. Having fallen for Andrews on sight (sorry about that) whilst 'slumming', society dame Oberon affects blindness of her own to win Andrews love. His condition can, of course, be cured in a heartbeat but it will take major bucks and a surgeon in New York. He thinks that Oberon hasn't got change of a match and wouldn't take her money even if he knew she was really Miss Gotrocks but love of course will find a way. Oberon 'creates' a music competition with five K (this is 1947) for the best classical competition and arranges for Andrews to win it. Do I really need to go on? If you can get past this hoke and more - and yes, there IS more, I kid you not, then chances are you'll enjoy it.

JohnHowardReid I gather from Paramount's Press Book that the purpose of this movie was to introduce a new piano concerto by Leith Stevens. Alas, if Paramount Publicity is to be believed, that aim fails dismally. Despite being rendered here by Arthur Rubenstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Eugene Normandy, the concerto is as dull as the surrounding story is silly. True, our star, Merle Oberon, is beautifully photographed and gorgeously gowned. Also true that director John Cromwell and actors Hoagy Carmichael and Ethel Barrymore try their best to work up an audience's interest in the proceedings. The problem is that the script is so absurd, it would have made a really great spoof if only the actors and the director had decided NOT to play it straight! (I gave this movie 2/10 in my original review, but maybe that's being too hard even though it does force audiences to sit still for 102 minutes.)

jarrodmcdonald-1 If you ask me, this film seems undervalued or under-appreciated. I don't know why. RKO's NIGHT SONG stars Dana Andrews as a blind pianist and Merle Oberon as the woman who loves him. The music is wonderful, and while the plot is full of melodramatic complications and a liberal amount of hokum, it still manages to entertain and engage the audience because the characters are well-drawn and well played. The film boasts the added bonus of having Ethel Barrymore and Hoagy Carmichael in the supporting roles.In some ways, NIGHT SONG reminds me of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, where Irene Dunne (or Jane Wyman, take your pick) experiences blindness and manages to find love in an unlikely source. While not considered an 'essential' (in the TCM sense of the word), NIGHT SONG is a studio film that is very well put together and succeeds on many levels.