Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

boirin This was loosely based on the Henry Handel Richardson novel, 'Maurice Guest', which explored obsessive, destructive and unrequited love amid the backdrop of music students in Leipzig at the turn of the twentieth century. This film adaptation took huge liberties with the plot, played down or eliminated most of the characters, sanitized the sexuality and ditched the bleak ending (though happily so). Enough has been said here about Elizabeth Taylor's breathtaking gorgeousness, the lushness of the classical music score and the brilliant instrumental simulations by Vittorio Gassman and John Ericson, but not enough about Charles Vidor's direction, which keeps the film on a thoroughly entertaining, albeit melodramatic, path. The best part IMO is the last fifteen minutes or so, which takes a wrenching turn and builds the tension with a spectacular rendition of Rachmaninoff's Concerto 2 (by far the best version I've ever seen on screen). Ericson's performance here is amazing and almost runs away with the film. Last but not least, that hopelessly gorgeous ending!

James Hitchcock Louise Durant, the central player in this film, is what might be described as a classical groupie. She is a wealthy heiress who attaches herself to two handsome young classical musicians, both students at the Conservatoire in Zurich, in turn. The two men in her life are Paul (dark, violinist, Continental European although his precise nationality is never stated) and James (blond, pianist, American). The story falls into two acts. In Act I Louise falls in love with Paul, but their romance is short-lived because she cannot accept that the life of a classical musician involves a great deal of hard work which limits the time they can spend together.Fast forward to the beginning of Act II. A lot appears to have happened in the interval between the acts. We learn that Louise is now married to James (a relatively minor figure in Act I), that he has given up his musical career for her and that he is living off her money. These developments, however, do not appear to have brought him happiness because the main thing he spends Louise's money on is drink and he has become an alcoholic. Act II is the story of James's efforts to turn his life around, to kick his drink habit and to rediscover his love of music. Paul, however, has now reappeared in Louise's life and she must decide whether to elope with him or stay with her husband.Which way does she decide? I was going to say that I won't write a spoiler, but of course in the fifties the Hays Office effectively used to write the spoilers for the audience. Anyone with any knowledge of the requirements of the Production Code, which forbade happy endings for anyone guilty of marital infidelity, will be able to predict, long before the closing titles, exactly how the story will end.Elizabeth Taylor, at the height of her beauty, here experiments with a boyishly short haircut, and gets away with it. (This look may have been inspired by Audrey Hepburn, Hollywood's "new kid on the block" in 1954. Audrey was in fact three years older than Elizabeth, but it was the younger woman who had had a longer film career, going back to her days as a child star in the early forties). This is, however, far from being Taylor's best performance. Louise, by rights, should be someone we dislike- a selfish, manipulative woman who comes close to destroying James's musical career and would have destroyed Paul's had he not had enough sense to see through her- but Taylor does her best to make us like her, playing her as a conventional romantic heroine. She fails, of course; perhaps Taylor's own complex love life- at 22 she already had one divorce behind her- prevented her from realising just how emotionally destructive women like Louise can be in real life.This is not a film for anyone with no interest in classical music. Apart from one early scene where Paul is arguing with a conductor about the interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, the film does not go into the technicalities of the subject in any great depth, but we get to hear lengthy excerpts from the Tchaikovsky and from Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. Now I personally could listen to both these composers all day long, but I suspect that those who do not share my love of classical music will be reaching for the fast-forward button during these passages.The film is attractively shot in vivid colour, but the storyline and the dialogue rarely, if ever, rise above the level of a lurid and melodramatic soap opera. For Liz Taylor completists only. 5/10 (4/10 for the film itself, with a bonus point for the music).

blitzebill I bumped into this film today, read a couple of reviews here and decided to see what the fuss was all about.Yes the music is central here as is the extreme devotion the characters dedicate to it. Obsession and drive/ambition to be the best in the world of the concert hall has and always will be the focus of the soloist.The violinist and pianist are also competing for the love of a woman who has no clue about that ambition and obsession. Taylor does a good job of it, and realizes finally near the end that she can be part of the musical life of one she loves.Love and music both win out at the end.This film also reminds me of "The Competition" with Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving. Again competing and winning in love and music prevails in that film as well. I wouldn't be surprised if the producer and director of "The Competition" did an intensive study of "Rhapsody" to put their film together.One other thing, both Gassman and Ericson were excellent in mimicking their performances on their respective instruments. It is not easy accomplishing that, and both Dreyfuss and Irving did as well in "The Competition," which I recommend as a follow-up to this film.

mlamar-3 Like stacym said above, I think this was a very good film. While others have complained that the story is mediocre, I found Elizabeth Taylor's subtle eye movements and facial expressions intriguing, and the story changed enough that it kept me wondering what was going to happen next. Gassman and Ericson played their instruments so lifelike you almost thought they were playing them. Louis Calhern again provided a sophisticated performance as her distanced dad. In fact, I thought that the music was not as exceptional as the acting, although the selections were chosen to show off the virtuosity of the performers rather than for their beautiful melodies. (I am a Puccini and Lehar fan.) The actors were all impressive in their roles and should have received more awards than they did for their consummate collaboration.