Word: miscasting
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Torch Song (MGM) should make a lot of Joan Crawford's fans uncomfortable. Joan is miscast as a belligerent musi-comedy star who wears her heart on her fist; the fist is directed mainly at Michael Wilding. Fortunately, the camera decides most of the time that it is more fun to look at Actress Crawford's remarkable legs. Even this is an obvious mistake, for by reducing a performer of Joan's experience and hard-won skills to the cheesecake class, the picture stints her of the human qualities she has developed. Best scene: one in which...
Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto was both the highlight and the lowlight of the evening. The orchestra was vigorous and forceful; Munch conducted with sweeping brilliance. But pianist Leila Goussean was as miscast playing the Emperor as Pier Angrli would be, playing Moby Dick. It takes a man--a strong man--to make this showy, difficult concerto come to life...
...himself a hero in Korea; a ballet dancer (Leslie Caron) who hoofs in a honky-tonk to support her blind father (Kurt Kasznar). Pretty Leslie (An American in Paris) Caron, playing a Belgian girl in America, is on her toes in a couple of dance numbers, but is otherwise miscast. Satchmo and Trombonist Jack Teagarden contribute a few hot jazz licks, but most of the picture is just tepid theatrics...
...course, most of his worsts, like Alice in Wonderland and Robert Taylor in Quo Vadis, are sitting ducks, but the placing of Mario Lanza under the banner, "biggest argument for stricter immigration laws," is a clever ploy. Lampy shows his baser side only when he calls Franchot Tone "most miscast" for Tone's portrayal of a Boston Brahmin in Here Comes the Groom...
...role, Rosenstock borrowed Baritone Marko Rothmuller, a onetime Berg pupil, from London's Covent Garden (from which he also borrowed the English translation). Rothmuller was a sympathetic character as the cloddish, hallucinated soldier, but vocally he turned out to be a bellower. Soprano Patricia (The Consul) Neway was miscast as Marie: she was more of a heart-wringing Tosca than the faithless tart she was supposed to be, and she screeched in her attempt to be heard over the orchestra...