Carnegie Hall 1947 DvdRip Avi Lee1001

Carnegie Hall 1947 DvdRip Avi Lee1001



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039244/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Hall_(film)

Auteur theorists who've charted the career of "cult" director Edgar G. Ulmer have seldom mentioned Carnegie Hall, simply because it was more expensive than most of Ulmer's films and thus can't be regarded a "low-budget masterpiece." The wafer-thin plotline concerns a young immigrant woman (Marsha Hunt) who takes a job as a Carnegie Hall cleaning woman. Her love of music leads her to a better job in the Hall, and after several years she rises to the position of concert organizer. The woman uses her clout to promote her own son's career as a pianist. Carnegie Hall showcases a number of celebrated musicians. Selections include: Arthur Rubinstein performing Chopin's Polonaise in A Flat, Jascha Heifetz performing Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in G Major by Tchaikovsky, Ezio Pinza singing both the drinking song from Don Giovanni and one of the arias from Simon di Boccanegra, Lily Pons singing The Bell Song from Lakme by Delibes, and Jan Peerce singing O Sole Mio.The film also includes musical performances by Bruno Walter,Rise Stevens, Gregor Piatagorsky, Harry James, Vaughn Monroe, Leopold Stokowski, and others.



May 3, 1947

' Carnegie Hall,' in Which an Array of Musical Talent Is Seen, Has Dual Premiere -- Two Other Films Arrive

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Published: May 3, 1947

It might have been more appropriate if our next-door neighbor, Olin Downes, had been given this delicate assignment of reviewing "Carnegie Hall," which had a dual première at the Winter Garden and Park Avenue yesterday. For it is more of a musical concert than it is a motion picture, actually; and since music is Mr. Downes' department, it would not be our wish to intrude. But because the producers, Boris Morros and William LeBaron, used the medium of film, plus a trite and foolish "movie story," to get the concert across, the job falls within our province. Also, Mr. Downes was "engaged."



That is to say, he is an actor—if you will pardon the expression—in this film, and as such he might possibly be suspected of having a slightly prejudicial point of view. As a matter of fact, he is directed to betray it rather frankly in one scene—his only scene, if you must know it—by a surprisingly generous remark. Playing a music critic ("Himself," as they list it in the cast), he states that he has taken a night off, for his "own pleasure," to catch one portion of the show. And since that portion is unquestionably the weakest and most mawkish part, he might best be permitted, on this occasion, the privacy of his busman's holiday.



Thus we are left with the music, which anyone can see is the only thing worth serious comment in this more than two-hour film. For the story through which this music is introduced and its performance justified is as hackneyed and maudlin a "hanger" as ever dripped from a scriptwriter's pen. It is one of those soggy fables about a mother who aspires for her son to be a great concert pianist. And, since she is attached to Carnegie Hall as one of its minor custodians, she is able to arrange his education there. This consists very largely in his listening to the music performed in "the Hall" and in hobnobbing intimately and freely with the great musicians themselves.



We must say that Mr. Downes' involvement is no more blunt or embarrassing than that of Jascha Heifetz, Walter Damrosch and a few others who contribute to the plot. For theirs is the painful necessity of lending their names and dignity to the obviously thankless endeavor of making this fable seem real. By actually pretending to take some interest in the maternal problems of Marsha Hunt, who plays the usual backstage mother, and in the cardboard career of William Prince, the son, they, on the scripter's initiative, much debase the sole integrity of the film.



That, as we say, is in the music which, although we are not very hep as to style in the upper register or what goes with wood-winds and strings, hits our ear with more richness and clarity than any we've ever heard from the screen. And we say "from the screen" advisedly, for the screen in this instance is again used for mere photographic reproduction of the performers and phonographic recording of their sounds. That is entirely sufficient in the case, say, of Artur Rubinstein, whose muscular command of the piano in Chopin's "Polonaise" and De Falla's "Ritual Fire Dance" is beautiful and thrilling to behold, or in the picturing of Gregor Piatigorsky violin-celloing Saint Saens' "The Swan" with the modeled grace and serenity that the music intrinsically suggests.



It is fair, too, in the illustration of Mr. Heifetz applying his magic touch to his fiddle in the performance, with the Philharmonic-Symphony, of Tchaikovsky's Concerto for Violin, or of Leopold Stokowski conducting the same orchestra in the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony in E minor. It is fun to watch Mr. Stokowski. With his hair especially lighted in this film so that it looks like a cloud atop a mountain, there is plenty of fascination for the eye.



But the conventional pictoria presentation is generally monotonous when it comes to the concert performances of Rise Stevens and Lily Pons. Miss Stevens is richly rhapsodic in the Saint Saens aria "My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice," and in the "Sequidilla" aria from "Carmen," and Miss Pons sings the "Lakme" Bell Song beautifully. But there is little visual entertainment in watching both of them, in succession, just stand up and sing. Ezio Pinza's performance of the "champagne song" from "Don Giovanni" has a little more verve, as does Jan Peerce's singing "O Sole Mio," although both are rather foolishly staged.



As for the lighter selections, provided by Vaughn Monroe's dance band—no comment. And as for the finale (which is where Mr. Downes comes in), it is a pretentious piece of musical claptrap called "Fifty-seventh Street Symphony," featuring the trumpet of Harry James. It is as brash and artificial as the story and staging of "Carnegie Hall"—which leaves us back on the curbstone. The music is very good.



Just is case any TIMES readers are fearful lest Mr. Downes may desert them for further screen acting we might note that it is not probable. Music criticism is closer to his style.



VIDEO

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Duration.... 02:15:49

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Frame Width..... 608

Frame Height.... 448

Data Rate.... 1213kbps

Frame Rate.... 23 F/S

AUDIO

Bit Rate.... 224kbps

2 Channel Stereo

Audio Sample Rate.... 48 KHz

Bits Per Sample 16 Bit/Sample