Grace Moore Movies
American singer and actress Grace Moore, born Mary Willie Grace Moore in Slabtown, TN, first became famous for singing in Broadway musicals. She then took her powerful but sweet soprano to the Metropolitan Opera. During the early '30s, she appeared in two MGM films. Moore then signed with Columbia and sang opera in several films, where her male leads included Cary Grant, Melvyn Douglas, Franchot Tone, Tullio Carminatti and many others. Her work is credited for helping to make opera music accessible to mainstream audiences. In 1944, Moore published her autobiography, You're Only Human Once (1944). In 1947, Moore died in a plane crash in Europe during a concert tour. In 1953, her life was portrayed in the biopic So This Is Love. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
What was it about opera diva Grace Moore that attracted the attention of filmdom's top directors? Moore's 1937 American movie vehicle When You're in Love had been directed by Josef Von Sternberg; two years later, her French starrer Louise was helmed by no less than Abel Gance, who a decade earlier had revolutionized the "historical epic" genre with the awesome Napoleon. There was, however, little that was revolutionary in this cinemadaption of Gustave Charpentier's opera. Moore plays Louise, a poor seamstress who is led astray by the rakish Julien (Georges Thill). After falling from grace (no pun intended), our heroine is rescued by her understanding father (Andre Pernet), who demonstrates his forgiveness by singing to her (it is, after all, an opera). Though it played to enthusiastic crowds in both London and Paris, Louise turned out to be Grace Moore's final film; conversely, Abel Gance continued to make commercial potboilers well into the 1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Grace Moore, Suzanne Desprès, (more)
- 1937
Opera diva Grace Moore plays (what a stretch!) an opera diva in I'll Take Romance. Moore reneges on an agreement to open the opera season in Buenos Aires, opting instead for a better-paying job in Paris. Melvyn Douglas, acting on behalf of the Buenos Aires company, pretends to fall in love with Moore in order to win her back--but soon discovers to his surprise that he's not pretending at all. Ms. Moore sings selections from Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly and La Traviata. and also warbles the title song, which became a hit and subsequently popped up as background music in many a future Columbia production. I'll Take Romance barely has a plot at all, though fans of Grace Moore weren't complaining. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Grace Moore, Melvyn Douglas, (more)
- 1937
In this tuneful, romantic drama, an Australian opera star (Grace Moore) wants to perform in a major U.S. festival but cannot enter the country unless she is married. To this end, she hires a handsome artist (Cary Grant) temporarily marry her. At first it is all strictly business, but in time, the artist starts falling in love. Songs include: "Our Song," "Minnie the Moocher" (this number is usually cut out in 98m televised version of the film), "Siboney," and "The Waltz Song." ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Grace Moore, Cary Grant, (more)
- 1936
Josef Von Sternberg, past directorial master of movie exotica, came down to earth with The King Steps Out, a major studio musical. Set in 19th century Vienna, the plot concerns a sprightly young lady (opera star Grace Moore) who wishes to rescue her sister from marrying their cousin, the "wicked" Emperor Franz Josef (Franchot Tone). Disguised as a dressmaker, the girl instantly falls in love with the young monarch herself, and sings her way into his heart. The film is a compendium of every mittel-European operetta ever made, right down to the supporting appearance of Hermann Bing as an innkeeper named Pretzelberger. The King Steps Out was adapted from the Fritz Kreisler stage musical Cissy. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Grace Moore, Franchot Tone, (more)
- 1935
Dreams Come True for Ilona Ratkay (Frances Day), a popular opera singer who falls in love with gangly farm boy Anton (Nelson Keys). Not so lucky is Anton's father Albert (Hugh Wakefield), who is left all alone when his son runs off to the Big City with Ilona. Things really get sticky when Albert becomes obsessed with the notion that Ilona is actually his own illegitimate daughter! The more censurable aspects of the story are neatly skirted and circumvented with liberal doses of music and comedy. Dreams Come True is a remake of the German operetta Liebesmelodie. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Frances Day, Nelson Keys, (more)
- 1935
Grace Moore and Victor Schertzinger, the star-director combination responsible for the marvelous One Night of Love (1934), came up with another tune-filled winner in Love Me Forever. Once again voluntarily shedding her "diva" image, Moore plays Margaret Howard, a once-glamorous socialite who's hit the skids. She is rescued from obscurity by Steve Corelli (Leo Carrillo), an opera-loving gambler. Lavishing his entire fortune on Margaret's climb to the top, Steve naturally expects her to fall in love with him out of gratitude, but she has set her sights on another man. As originally scripted, Steve was to have thoughtfully removed himself from the picture by being bumped by gangsters, but as the film now stands, he manages to win Margaret away from her present amour, radio tenor Michael Bartlett (playing himself). Musical highlights include brief excerpts from La Boheme, Rigoletto and Funiculi Funicula. Enthusiastically received by the critics, Love Me Forever proved equally successful with movie fans -- even those who'd never be caught dead attending one of Grace Moore's live operatic performances. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Grace Moore, Leo Carrillo, (more)
- 1934
After several false starts, opera star Grace Moore became a motion picture success in the sublimely assembled One Night of Love. Moore opens the film by losing a radio talent contest in New York. She disconsolately heads to Europe, where the best job she can come up with is singing in a restaurant. Here she is discovered by brilliant voice-teacher Tulio Carminatti, who carefully nurtures Moore until she becomes the toast of the European opera world. The two fall in love, but jealousy nearly destroys them both. Happily, Moore recovers to the extent of making a triumphant return to the US as reigning diva of the Metropolitan Opera. One Night of Love represents Grace Moore's finest screen work. The film's musical manifest includes such operatic standards as Lucia di Lammermoor, Madame Butterfly and Carmen; the "contemporary" musical lineup was composed by such hands as Louis Silvers (who won an Oscar for his efforts), Victor Schertzinger (who also directed), and Gus Kahn. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Grace Moore, Tullio Carminatti, (more)
- 1930
Metropolitan Opera diva Grace Moore made her film debut in MGM's A Lady's Morals. The film purports to be the biography of "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind, who was ballyhooed to stardom by 19th-century showman P.T. Barnum (Wallace Beery, who'd re-create the role in 1934's The Mighty Barnum). Most of the story, however, is given over to the fabricated romance between Lind (Moore) and young composer Paul Brandt (Reginald Denny), who gives her up when stricken with blindness. As if this wasn't trouble enough, Lind loses her voice at the height of her career; she regains her golden throat, but Paul is lost to her forever. Grace Moore sings seven songs during the film's amazingly brief (75-minute) running time, two of them operatic classics. The anemic box-office showing of A Lady's Morals and her follow-up vehicles briefly squelched Grace Moore's hopes for film stardom, but a few years later she enjoyed enormous success in a series of Columbia musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Grace Moore, Françoise Rosay, (more)
- 1930
Metropolitan opera star Grace Moore's second movie vehicle was the 1930 adaptation of the Oscar Hammerstein II-Sigmund Romberg operetta New Moon. On this occasion, Moore was teamed with another "Met" alumnus, baritone Lawrence Tibbertt. The stars are cast respectively as Tanya Strogoff, a White Russian princess slated to marry a man she does not love, and Michael Petroff, the handsome lieutenant whom she does love. The jilted fiance, Governor Boris Brusiloff (Adolphe Menjou) vows revenge, leading to a bloody military engagement in which even comedy-relief character Potkin (Gus Shy) is killed. Nonetheless, both hero and heroine live to love and sing again. The fact that the original operetta was set in 18th-century New Orleans rather than pre-Revolutionary Russia did not stop the screenwriters from utilizing most of the plot devices from the 1928 stage version. Likewise left intact were many of the timeless Hammerstein-Romberg tunes, including Lover Come Back to Me and Stout-Hearted Men. Despite its Slavic setting, New Moon was retitled Parisian Belle for television, to avoid confusion with the 1940 Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald remake. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lawrence Tibbett, Grace Moore, (more)
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