WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Michael_Elliott Humoresque (1946) *** 1/2 (out of 4)Paul Boray (John Garfield) dreams of being able to play his violin for a living but he just doesn't have the right connections to make it. This changes when he meets a rich married woman (Joan Crawford) who takes a liking to his talent but soon the two fall in love as Paul's career takes off. Many people have compared this to GOLDEN BOY only with music and I think that's a fair thing to say. There's no question that this here is going to be very entertaining to film buffs due to a number of reasons but of course when you've got heavyweights like Garfield and Crawford you know you're in for a treat. Crawford was coming off her Oscar-winning role in MILDRED PIERCE and she followed that role up with another terrific character. Even though she's given top-billing she's mainly just a supporting player here but she delivers a remarkable performance. For someone who always played tough characters, the actress does a fantastic job at playing someone very fragile and weak. This is certainly the type of role that fans hadn't seen from Crawford and she is wonderful in it. Garfield is also someone fit with the tough guy roles and seeing him play a violin isn't what you expect from him but he's very much believable in the role. I thought he did a fantastic job showing the character's love for music and why a woman would be second. Oscar Levant is very strong as the piano player, Ruth Nelson is great in the role of the mother and the always dependable J. Carrol Naish. A young Robert Blake plays the kid Garfield. The music is certainly another highlight as it's constantly playing throughout the film and helps explain the 125-minute running time. Isaac Stern dubbed Garfield in the music and he certainly did a fantastic job. There's been much written about the ending, which I won't spoil here but it's certainly a wonderful sequence that is perfectly put together. The way it mixes the music with the actions of Crawford was very impressive.

utgard14 A young boy from the slums grows up to be an arrogant violinist. He meets a wealthy neurotic married woman who drinks too much and she becomes his patron. Eventually the two fall in love. At least I think it was love. John Garfield starring vehicle, despite Joan Crawford's top billing. Whenever I heard people talk about this film it was always in the context of a Joan Crawford movie. So I was a little surprised when I watched it to see it is much more focused on Garfield. Joan doesn't even show up until forty minutes in! Garfield does fine but I was disappointed to learn he didn't play or even fake the violin scenes. As I was watching I was impressed by his finger work and was ready to give him props for learning that. But it was just Hollywood trickery as the hands you see in the closeups actually belong to two violinists standing on either side of him, one for the fingering and one for the bow. The shots where you can't see his face are all Isaac Stern. So that knocks points off of what is otherwise a typical Garfield performance.Joan's performance is good but I see a lot of hyperbole surrounding it. For example, Leonard Maltin's film guide refers to it as "perhaps Crawford's finest hour." I disagree with that. It's a good performance but I can readily think of five better off the top of my head. Not to get on my soapbox but sometimes it seems like all you have to do to guarantee critical praise as an actor is play someone with a drug or alcohol problem. Anyway, one note on the shallow side: this is one of Joan's first movies in her forties and she looks it. But several times in the picture she puts on glasses and I swear it took five years off. Maybe it was because it hid those unflattering heavy eyebrows she wore in her later years.The supporting cast is very good. Oscar Levant is terrific as Garfield's wise-cracking piano playing friend. He gets most of the film's best lines. Levant did his own piano playing, as usual. J. Carrol Naish and Ruth Nelson are very likable as Garfield's parents. Nelson in particular gives a wonderfully sympathetic performance. The always pretty Joan Chandler has a small part as a girl who loves Garfield. There's not much meat to the part but she does a lot with it. Robert Blake plays young Garfield early on. He's OK but his penchant for suppressing a smile during serious scenes is still there. I've noticed he did that a lot as a child actor.Overall it's a good drama with a memorable ending, despite its similarity to A Star is Born. I don't feel it was the best work of the lead actors or director Jean Negulseco but it was definitely good and worth recommending.

davidholmesfr Given the somewhat clichéd and thin storyline (from a short story rather than a novel), the film just about hold up. This seems to be due to Negulesco's balancing act between some of the overwrought passions and the basic telling of the story.Joan Crawford came to this following on from her Oscar-winning success in "Mildred Pierce". No doubt she, and the studio, thought that this would be "her" film. But John Garfield's performance actually overshadows Crawford; may this be a testament to method acting? I found it difficult to muscle up much sympathy for either of the main characters and this probably accounts for my comparatively Luke-warm conclusion. Both characters seemed devoid of any humour but fortunately we have Oscar Levant's one-liners to relieve some of the emotional tension. The extensive music performed in the film will be a plus for many, especially as much of it is from the Romantic era of classical music.It's certainly worth watching if you're interested in film history; if you're not then I suggest you wait for a wet Sunday afternoon when it's on TV.

Bolesroor Good gravy... they don't make them like this anymore. "Humoresque" is a dark, melodramatic romance in which everything is played as Grand Tragedy, going so far over the top that it becomes difficult to take seriously. John Garfield is Paul Boray, the violinist so gifted that he can bring every woman in his life to tears with the beauty of his solos. Joan Crawford is Helen, the nearsighted socialite in an open marriage who lusts after Paul's artistic fruits.The movie opens with a flashback: a young John Garfield has a choice between a violin and a baseball bat... being a tortured artist at heart, he grabs the fiddle and his life is never the same. Helen manipulates Paul into falling in love with her under the pretense of advancing his career. Garfield's best buddy is an obnoxious wise-cracking pianist who has a "witty" comeback for every occasion: "Call me back in an hour- I should be asleep by then."If this was a silent movie it would have been a smash… John Garfield's face is perfect: good-looking, almost brutish, with a touch of pain and sadness in his eyes that makes him a fascinating screen presence. And Joan Crawford's face was perfect here, too: halfway between the big-eyed beauty that she was and the menacing monster she would become. If the film consisted of only extreme close-ups of the two leads it would have been a wonderfully rich story... instead we get extended sequences featuring maudlin violin music and pages and pages of stylized dialogue.The unforgettable finale- featuring the longest suicide in film history- is Joan Crawford at her hammy best. As John Garfield gives his greatest stage performance Joan is at their beach house, alone and despondent, heartbroken and inconsolable, and the violin music swells as we cut back and forth between the concert and Joan's snail-paced walk into the ocean. She pauses every few moments for a close-up, enormous eyebrows arched above her contorted features. Slowly... slowly... she makes her way into the surf, which seems to sense her pain and swallow her instantly. Alas, she is gone, and Garfield learns a valuable, tragic life lesson: The violin is the instrument of doomed romance. Deeeep...Next time take the baseball bat.GRADE: B-