Word: iturbi
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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When a motion picture features the unbridled individuality of Jimmy Durante, the uncontested childhood charm of Margaret O'Brien, and artistry on the piano by Jose Iturbi, it becomes quite easy to overlook accompanying faults. "Music for Millions" may be somewhat wearing in its trite two-hour tug at wartime heart strings, but it is well stocked with talent that comes to the rescue during emotionally topheavy moments...
Music for Millions (M.G.M.) has two sterling assets: Margaret O'Brien and Jimmy Durante. June Allyson, as a pregnant bull-fiddler in a symphony orchestra conducted by Jose Iturbi, also performs with touching intensity. But the plethora of money lavished on this production, contrasted with the paucity of imagination and taste, makes an excessively lopsided picture. Typical stupenditure: the Misses Allyson and O'Brien walking mile after mile up the nave of a gigantic studio church, at thousands of dollars per step...
...followed with Harry James's The Love I Long For and 500,000 copies of White Christmas, sung by Frank Sinatra. On the classical front, Conductor Andre Kostelanetz got there first with recordings of the Schubert and Bach-Gounod Ave Marias (Columbia); runner-up was Pianist José Iturbi's recording of Morton Gould's Boogie Woogie Etude (Victor...
...back. Durante's real-life comeback gives his nostalgic character job much pathos and effect, along with his side-splitting humor. And with Young Man with a Horn Harry James tooting a mean tube, Gracie Allen going through the paces of her one-fingered piano comedy-classic, and Jose Iturbi doing some serious and dignified ivory-tickling, "Two Girls and A Sailor" has something of just about everything...
Meanwhile the production of classical symphonic records continues in a slow but steady trickle. The latest releases: Morton Gould: Latin American Symphonette (Rochester Philharmonic, Jose Iturbi conducting; Victor; 6 sides). A skillfully concocted olla podrida of Latin American nightclub idioms sizzling in Stravinskian sauce with occasional Straussian dumplings. Performance: excellent...