Evening star., 1951-03-02
Drama News and Reviews
MeIodronno ChiIIs Warner;
Dupont Gets Musical Art
By Joy Cormody

S0EtuOOY
! "oF MEN AND MUSIC" Twentieth
Century.Fox release of World Artists Aim.
Luber; featuring Artur Rubinstein, Jan
Peerce, Nadine Conner, Jascha Heifetz.
Dtmitri Mitropoulos. N. Y. Philharmonic
Refs; screenplay by Liam. O'Brien. Harry
Kurnitz. John Raxton and David Epstein.
At the Dupont.
t"Of Men and Music" which
opened last night at the Dupont
Theater with a gala premiere un-
der the sponsorship of the Amer
lean Newspaperwomen's Club, is a
new departure in popular film
making.
It undertakes to blend great
music with the human aspects of
Ithe musicians who produce the
worlds melodic masterpieces. This
is to say that it shows these
Artur Rubenstein, Jascha Heifetz,
Jan Peerce, Nadine Connor and
Dimitri Mitropoulos-both at ease
and at work. The much more sue
cessful part of the film, as per-
hapS is inevitable, is that in which
their music is speaking for these
artists.
Here, their greatness and that
of the goth Century-Fox produc-
ton is indisputable. This is con-
siderably more than can be said
for the non-musical passages
which are linked together by a
series of small. strained biogra-
phies almost totally lacking in
drama. These are, indeed, more
or less the stuff of fan magazine
feature stories.
The contrast, therefore. between
the aural beauty and the visual
commonplaceness of "Of Men and
Music" is all too conspicuous for
the full achievement of the films
laudably high purpose. Not even
this, however. can detract from
the sound truth that it is musical
ly a notably rewarding work and
a provocative try at something
distinguished in film making.
X X 4 X
Apart from their superlatively
eloquent art, the great music MAX
ers suffer the lot of most humans
in that while their gifts are extra
ordinary, their personal lives are
not.
Rubenstein at a piano, for in
stance, is a spell binding figure.
In the little sketch that serves as
structure for his program in "Of
Men and Music" he is just an
other man at home. He talks
about a film that might be a
permanent record of his art and
his life, he is shown in his Shirt
sleeves making a recording, and
at play with the healthy-looking
young Rubensteins.
The enchanting part of his Sc
Quence in the film is when he sits
at his piano playing Mendelssohn'
Spinning Song" the 'Liebe-
straum," a Chopin waltz and a
Polonaise. The heights he scales
here are stratospherically above
the level reached by the sequences
writing and direction.
n X u II
Heifetz at home is another such
man, gardener, tennis player, a
handy householder going about his
chores in work and play suits
which contrast strikingly with his
professionally austere wardrobe.
Yet 1t is when he dons the latter
and plays Bach's Partita Prelude,
1 The Girl With the .Flaxen Hair, 3"
! Wieniawski's Sherzo Tarantelle
and the Twenty-fourth Caprice by
Paganini that his episode vaults
to an irresistible peak.
Actually, the finest unity
achieved by "Of Men and Music"
with respect to story and the per-
formance it serves is the least
pretentious of the four sequences.
This is the closing episode of the
screen play in which Mitropoulos
and the Philharmonic Symphony
rehearse and play the third move
ment Of Liszt's Faust Symphony
There is genuine drama, as well as
splendid music. in this disclosure
of relationship between a dramatic
conductor and his orchestra.
Weakest of the four sections of
the production is that in which
Miss Connor and Peerce stage an
impromptu recital for an elderly
theater night watchman. There is
an almost total lack Of inspira-
ton in this sequence which not
even the brilliant vocalizing Of the
stars can redeem. Each contributes
a solo, followed by a duet of fare
well from Lucia"
1t leaves the spectator, however,
feeling that 'Of Men and Music"
is truly brilliant only when it deals
with music. Here it has true
beauty and charm.
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