Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

bkoganbing Long before Carnegie Hall came to the big screen, modern swing music arrived there with Benny Goodman and his clarinet with that famous concert in the late Thirties. So the idea behind the film was already quite dated.But the rather hokey plot of this film only serves as a frame for numbers by more classical artists than ever gathered on one movie at the same time. If you love classical music and the great artists who are no longer with us from the past than this is your movie and no review good or bad will have anything to do with whether you see it or not.Such as it is the story revolves around Marsha Hunt whose mother was a charwoman at Carnegie Hall and she started there as well and worked her way up to part of the management. She married and had a son who grew up to be William Prince who listening to the greatest classical artists around got a real musical education. But all Prince wants to do is play piano with Vaughn Monroe.Without giving too much away, let's say that the education was not in vain after all.With people like Walter Damrosch and Leopold Stakowski conducting symphonies and such artists as Lily Pons, Rise Stevens, Jan Peerce and my favorite Ezio Pinza on the screen, if you're a classical music fan this movie is a must for you. The story is easy to take as well and there's a nice performance by Frank McHugh as Carnegie Hall's eternal doorman.

richard-1787 This is a movie about a young man and his mother. She sacrifices everything so that he can study to be a classical pianist. He falls in love with big band music and decides to pursue that. His mother is heart-broken. In other words, one long, slow cliché that has been done better elsewhere.If that's all there were to this movie, I would say "forget it." But in between these scenes of melodrama there are live performances by some of the greatest classical musicians of the 1930s and 40s, indeed some of the greatest classical musicians of all times. Their performances, often truly great ones, are not wedged in in bits and pieces. Rather, we get to watch Arthur Rubinstein perform the entire Chopin Military Polonaise - and then de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance. We get to watch Jascha Heifitz perform the entire last movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto - and with what fire! We get to wonder as Leopold Stokowski completely distorts the tempo markings for an entire movement of a Tchaikovsky symphony, producing a series of remarkable moments that, for this listener, never came together as a whole - but still, what daring to pull Tchaikovsky apart like that. Stokowsky and Rubenstein both remind us of an era when classical musicians were also stage performers. Rubenstein bangs away at the keyboard with fantastic arm gestures. Stokowski is very clearly conscious of the angle from which he is being filmed. These are spectacular musicians devoted to the music, yes, but these are also colossal, theatrical egos.We get to see Ezio Pinza stand there in a costume that would be grounds for a law suit, yet sing Don Giovanni's Brindisi like no one else - and the opening of Il lascerato spirto, from Verdi's Simon Bocanegra, the only musical fragment in the movie.I saw this - most of it - on TCM. It is evidently available on DVD. I hope the DVD recognizes the dual nature of the movie and has the tracks arranged so that one can skip over the melodrama and just enjoy the remarkable musical performances.

whpratt1 Enjoyed this film from the very beginning to the end with great artists performing in Carnegie Hall and a great story revolving around a woman named Nora Ryan, (Marsha Hunt) and her son named Tony Salerno, Jr., (William Prince) who wants her son to become a great concert pianist. Nora works in Carnegie Hall as a cleaning lady polishing brass rails and works hard to support her son who she loves very much. Tony grows up in Carnegie Hall and gets to meet all the famous conductors, singers and famous musicians. However, Tony wants to cut the apron strings of his mother and branches off to the modern dance bands and meets up with a very attractive gal which sort of breaks his mother's heart. If you like Classical Music and enjoy the great talents of super star talents from the past, this is the film for you. By the way, Marsha Hunt is approaching the age of 90 years and contributed a great deal of her acting ability to the Hollywood Silver Screen. Great film, don't miss it. Enjoy.

didi-5 Although the music segments are second to none (Rubenstein, Heifetz, Pinza, Lily Pons, Rise Stevens, and representing the more 'modern' era Harry James and the great Vaughn Monroe) the story, what little there is, is really dreadful. Nora is a selfish and pathetic person in whom we have little or no interest, her piano-playing son has the personality of a goldfish, and the film is the clunkier for them both. Tip - if you see this on video fast-forward to the musical bits. They are well worth it and amazingly, all still look great after 53 years!