wes-connors In a working class New York City neighborhood, young Mickey Roth (as Little George Gershwin) and young Darryl Hickman (as Little Ira Gershwin) arrive home and are excited to see a piano being delivered to an apartment in their building. Brother Ira is inexplicably unsure if the piano is for their family, making him very likely the only boy in the Bronx who is unable to pick out his window from the street. Fortunately, the Gershwin brothers are bright in other areas. They quickly grow up to become Robert Alda (as George Gershwin) and Herbert Rudley (as Ira Gershwin). The focus turns almost exclusively on Mr. Alda, who essays a successful career as a pianist and composer. There are hit songs and Broadway shows, but romance is elusive...Like most Hollywood film biographies, "Rhapsody in Blue" takes some facts about a subject's life and fleshes them out with fiction. This story is best during Irving Rapper's well-directed opening and exciting closing sequences; other than that, the movie version of Gershwin's life is a colossal bore. However, the music is excellent. Many of the composer's greatest hits are heard. Legendary entertainer Al Jolson and conductor Paul Whiteman appear, with new versions of their #1 Gershwin hits "Swanee" and the title song. We also see original "Porgy and Bess" stage performer Anne Brown, and many others...Oscar Levant plays himself exceptionally well...This was the debut film for Alda, from success in musical theater; presently, he is more famous as the father of former "M*A*S*H" TV favorite Alan Alda. Robert Alda and Herbert Rudley do slightly resemble George and Ira Gershwin, especially in their scenes together. The filmmakers decided to focus on little brother George and his, at the time, significantly more dramatic life. A better idea might have been to tell both brothers' story as their relationship is the most interesting and engaging in the film. Rudley gets a lot of screen time, but is too often kept on the sidelines. The romances are ordinary and dull.****** Rhapsody in Blue (6/27/45) Irving Rapper ~ Robert Alda, Herbert Rudley, Oscar Levant, Joan Leslie

cstotlar-1 Little of Gershwin's true life story was depicted here. As in the case of so many composers, their lives were not as dramatic as their music so an infringement or two on reality didn't disturb the audience or the flow of the film. No, Ravel didn't want to disturb Gershwin's style - neither did Nadia Boulanger for that matter - and things worked out well in the long run. For those of us who have performed the "Concerto in F", the orchestra is in imitation of Ravel so Gershwin chose the perfect model. As a film, this certainly isn't "Amadeus" or anything of that ilk. It's an Irving Rapper paint-by-the-numbers pic that celebrates the music above all else and some of the music here wasn't top-notch Gershwin - I've never heard the "Cuban Overture" in public, for example, and the "Porgy and Bess" snips were definitely not in the opera as presented here but these are minor details. I'm glad I saw the film for the music but that's all I want from it.Curtis Stotlar

richard-1787 It seems hard to believe that the same studio that made Yankee Doodle Dandy just a year before, Warner Brothers, could then have made this very disappointing picture. The script for YDD was sometimes hackneyed yes,, but it was still often a great film, in large part because of the brilliant direction of Michael Curtiz, one of Hollywood's great directors, someone who could do so many things so well, from The Adventures of Robin Hood and the Seahawk to Casablanca to YDD, and the electric performance of James Cagney.Both those elements, or their equivalent, are lacking here. Irving Rapper's direction goes nowhere, and Robert Alda, in his first feature-length motion picture, proves to be a very poor actor. The supporting cast is of no help.Part of that problem lies in the script, which is full of biopic clichés. Still, Cagney rose above similar clichés to create a truly living character in YDD. After watching this movie and Alda's performance in it, I have no sense of what Gershwin was like. Yes, I know the script has a lot of invention, and goes wide of the unromantic reality of Gershwin's real life. But so, as I recall, does the script of YDD, and still, Cagney created a living character out of the results. Alda, with evidently no real support from his director, does not.Yet this movie is not a total failure, by any means. If the script and acting are strictly second rate, below Warner Brothers' best, some of the musical numbers are pure magic. Al Jolson was 25 years older in this picture than when he first performed Swanee on Broadway, but he still makes the number come alive with his voice in an astounding fashion, putting Joan Leslie's performance of the number a little earlier in the movie to shame. Similarly, the performance of Blue Monday Blues is pure magic. Watching Paul Whiteman conducting the first, smaller version of Rhapsody in Blue is also fascinating: there is a LOT of playing with the tempo markings, which must have been how he performed it with Gershwin back in 1924 when they premiered it at Aeolian Hall. It would have been great had they allowed Anne Brown, the original Bess, to perform some of Bess's music, but they give her Summertime, which she would not have sung in the original production of Porgy and Bess. Whiteman and Oscar Levant are interesting doing the Concerto in F, but we don't get to hear a lot of it.It is strange to see Levant in the final scenes of the movie, when Gershwin is in his last days. If Levant was actually in the real- life equivalent of those scenes, it must have been very strange for him to re-enact the last days of the composer's life, especially the last day, when he leaves to go back to New York to perform the Concerto in F with Damrosch just hours before the composer's death.In short, you can skip all the dialogue scenes, as they are poorly acted, poorly written, and not necessarily reliable. On the other hand, some of the musical numbers should be preserved forever, as they are both historical and remarkable.--------------------Some of what I wrote above was unnecessarily harsh. Yes, by far the most important parts of this movie, as in *Yankee Doodle Dandy*, are the musical numbers, especially those performed by those who were connected with the original performances.But it is also interesting to see how this movie repeatedly tries to present Gershwin as Warner Brothers had presented Cohan the year before: as not just a great composer, but as someone who was trying to give voice to the nation. I don't think anyone today would dare to try that with a modern musician, but neither do I think Warner's was wrong in making the attempt.On a second viewing, Robert Alda is not so bad as Gershwin. It remains true, however, that neither he nor the script ever really makes us understand what made Gershwin tick. There are strands that are introduced along those lines that could have been developed: an attempt to erase the boundaries between classical and popular music, the importance of Black music and culture in American music, etc., but they are never carried out. This movie is way too long; it would have been better had all the scenes with Joan Leslie and Alexis Smith been cut, as beautiful as Smith is in this movie. Still, there is a lot of value here. It merits an attentive viewing.

DKosty123 Robert Alda, Charles Coburn, & Herbert Ruddley carry a major Warner brothers triumph in this production. The folks who made the film had the smarts to let the music carry the film along. It helped that the story really celebrates the Gershwins, centering on George (Alda) but featuring Coburn and Ruddley.In a way, this might be one of the strongest biographic films made. The cast is outstanding in every way. It is a reminder that George Gershwin was a man driven to greatness so hard, that when he does have a flop, his only regret is how much time he spent failing. It does not stop him from going on to write some of the greatest music in American History and one of the very few American Operas.While I am not sure if there are many facts of the true lives changed, the fact is this one chose the right people to play the royal family of American Composers. Warner even cast several people as themselves in the movie adding a touch of realism to the finished product. When you finish watching this, it tells you just how great the music is the Gershwins wrote, sang, and produced. Bravo