Synopsis
TWO WHO MET AND KISSED AND NEVER SHOULD HAVE MET AGAIN!
A classical musician from a working class background is sidetracked by his love for a wealthy, neurotic socialite.
Humoresque
1946 Directed by Jean Negulesco
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Popular reviews
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I would like to dedicate this review to someone not so special
who was a violinist that I was head over heels gaga gugu for
until I learned that violinists only love three things:
themselves, their fucking violin, and themselves
and this movie is about Joan Crawford who falls in love
with a violinist who looks like John Garfield
and she doesn't yet know that violinists only love three things:
themselves, their fucking violin, and themselves
but by the end of the movie, she will know, too! -
i'm a violinist and i was screaming for this entire movie because of how this production actually made an effort to make it look like john garfield is playing the violin!! having one real violinist finger and another violinist bow during all the closeups actually WORKED i cannot believe it why does every production with string playing not do this??? they hacked it in 1946 you clowns!!! i was always right for being pissed at movies that have fake fucking violin playing!!! I AM VINDICATED!!!!!
other things this movie gets right:
- prodigies are assholes with big egos it's just the way it is
- violinists love to correct and argue with dumb conductors (i'm violinists)things this movie could…
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Me and melodrama move in mysterious ways. One day, I hate it, the next, I love it. Rinse, repeat. But melodrama has my attention when a precocious violinist played by John Garfield gets mixed up with an imperious Joan Crawford as a patroness of the arts, or rather a possessive, lonely woman used to collecting and manipulating soft men. In Humoresque, what I normally find overwrought is transfixing. The music can swell, and the conflict between art and love can rise to a level of indulgence that could be downright ludicrous in other films, yet I'm sucked into the film's orbit. Oscar Levant's cheap wisecracks only drew me in more. Melodrama can be a beautiful thing sometimes.
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Humoresque has glimmers of real passion, but it’s just so bogged down by the weight of its overblown story. The film can’t escape its own seriousness. I’m a big fan of both John Garfield and Joan Crawford— they’re enticing on screen together, when the film allows them the chance. However, beyond the performances, an aspect of the film I did enjoy is the unique editing and gorgeous cinematography. Unlike a lot of music-centered movies, the music here is not a separate entity from the action of the plot. It melts Garfield’s violin performances with close-ups of Joan Crawford’s face, and the film crescendos so beautifully to a magnificent climax. I wish I liked this film more, but it could have really benefited from a tighter runtime (and more Joan Crawford).
3.1/5
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TW: mentions of suicide
Some spoilers
"I spend my life doing penance for things I never should have done in the first place."
"I don't know how you men get that way but every time you meet an attractive woman you begin to plan on how and where you can club her wings down."
"Paul, what good is a woman who's no use to anyone?"
I can't believe I gave this film three stars back when I first watched it in 2018. On this rewatch, I was astounded by it, my eyes glued to the screen during the climax as if I was seeing it for the very first time. John Garfield and Joan Crawford are two of my favorite…
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This was a movie that looked like a million bucks, a movie that starts off on a solidly good foot but very quickly dissolves into a movie that is so bad it might actually be good, or maybe ‘entertaining enough’ is a better way to put it (quick someone call Howard Ashman and have him recreate this into an off broadway musical).
The dialogue in this movie is on par with Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda dialogue (Pull the strings!), at the end of the movie our hero says ‘I have to shave today. Why do I have to shave every day?’
At first I thought, How did they get an actor who could play violin so well? There were…
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This movie is entirely Joan's. She steals the picture from the very first second she makes her entrance, and delivers an amazing performance as the complex and spellbinding Helen Wright. Forever my favorite movie.
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A movie that legitimately lays claim to its ‘melodrama’ tag since it features plenty of music – violin pieces, chiefly – and is suitably dramatic. John Garfield thoroughly convinces as a fiddle-playing virtuoso from a humble background who, from the age of 12, trains hard for 10 years, before catching the eye of a tired-of-life socialite, who provides his nascent career with the platform it needs.
Perhaps because he is so intense and dedicated to his craft, Helen (Joan Crawford) falls in love with Paul. And while Paul certainly has feelings for her, it’s his violin and the music he makes with it that is his greatest passion. This is unfortunate for Helen because though she’s met ‘the one’, she…
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oh to be joan crawford dramatically crying while walking on the beach with violin music swelling behind her