Anthony Mann and Serenade

[Derek McGovern]

I see there's a new biography out on director Anthony Mann. It's
simply called "Anthony Mann", and it's by Jeanine Basinger. Here's the
Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Anthony-Mann-Wesleyan-Jeanine-Basinger/dp/0819568457/ref=sr_1_107?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212913845&sr=1-107

I was able to do a search at the above for references to Lanza in the
book, and I found that he's actually discussed over a couple of pages.
The book also includes an excellent photo of him in Serenade.

Ms. Basinger takes a pretty dim view of Serenade, calling it
"essentially, a soap opera without merit" and the only film that Mann
ever made in which "his directorial presence cannot be fully felt",
but unlike the author of another recent study on Mann, she's fairly
kind to Mario:

"He was a magnificent tenor who became an overnight sensation in the
late forties only to fall quickly out of favour and suffer an early
death within a short decade. [...] Serenade gives Mann little to work
with except Lanza, who was actually a vibrant, self-confident
presence. He had real star quality, and presented a beefy,
down-to-earth look that wasn't associated with movie opera singers.
[...] Neither Montiel nor Lanza are great actors, but knows how to get
the best from them."

She then gives a few examples, and singles out Mann's artistic
highpoints in the film: "Whenever there is a chance to do something
creative Mann takes it: a rooftop musical number, a carnival sequence,
a melodramatic thunderstorm. In the main, however, Mann was in service
to Lanza."

Interesting! I don't agree, of course, that Serenade is "a soap opera
without merit" or that Sarita Montiel wasn't much of an actress. Far
from it, in fact. But it's good to see not only Lanza's vocal talent
being acknowledged, but also his screen presence -- and she's bang on
in her comments in that respect.

What she should have borne in mind, however, is that (as Armando
points in his book) Mann was more than a little distracted during the
making of Serenade because of his infatuation with Montiel -- and that
*that* may have accounted for the film lacking some of the usual Mann
touches.

[Derek McGovern]

Whoops! I missed out a word above.

One quote should have read: "Neither Montiel nor Lanza are great
actors, but MANN knows how to get the best from them."

[Derek McGovern]

Since starting this thread two years ago, I see that there's been
another book published on Anthony Mann. In "Anthony Mann: the Film
Career" (2009), William Darby describes Serenade as "a confused and
confusing soap opera" and Mann's "poorest directorial effort after
1945." And just last month, in the June 24th edition of Slant
Magazine, Fernando F. Croce wrote (in reference to an Anthony Mann
film festival that's playing in New York City until July 15th) that,
"the one worthless Mann item, the 1956 Mario Lanza lox Serenade, is
blessedly nowhere to be seen."

Hmmn. While I'm willing to bet that the benevolent Mr. Croce has never
actually seen Serenade, and is simply parroting received critical
opinion, there's little doubt that the film is woefully
under-appreciated.

Even James M. Cain, on whose novel the movie was based, didn't have a
kind word to say about it, though he reserved his criticism for Lanza
-- not Mann -- while admitting that he'd never seen the entire film:

"[Lanza] drank and was always overweight and then he had to be dieted
down. A guy on a diet is cranky and disagreeable. Another thing, he
was convinced that Mario Lanza was the greatest singer who ever lived.
All Lanza was interested in was song cues. I never saw much of the
film version. It began coming in one night on television. My [fourth]
wife [Florence Macbeth] was an opera singer and liked this guy's
voice.

"I suspected him. I did not think that Mario Lanza did the intricate
cadenzas. I thought they were dubbed. I said, 'Do you mind if we cut
this *ghastly* thing off? God, did you ever see such a fantastically
horrible thing?' We cut if off, but I think she was annoyed with me.
My wife knew nothing about dubbing, so she doted on his voice." --
From Backstory 1: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden
Age (1986).

What absolute rubbish from Cain!! Lanza's "intricate cadenzas" were
"dubbed"?! The most "fantastically horrible" film ever made? I can
only conclude that the ever-grumpy, hard-drinking Mr. Cain -- himself
a failed opera singer -- was having a fit of jealousy. (Or perhaps
he'd just been reading his contemporary Raymond Chandler's famous
putdown of him: “[Cain] is every kind of writer I detest, a faux naïf,
a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk
and a board fence and nobody looking”?)

I'd say that the film version of Serenade is well overdue for serious
reconsideration.

[leeann]

Ah, well, Derek, Cain was a journalist and a writer of fiction and
perhaps that's sufficient commentary on his perspective. And maybe the
fact that he denigrates his FOURTH wife's musical sensibilities
despite her operatic background as a coloratura might hint at a
certain degree of egocentrism?.

Basinger, on the other hand, is a leader in the film studies field, I
think. And it would be interesting if she ever did a broader take on
Lanza. He's clearly on her radar screen, but her references to him
seem to be in service to other themes or biographies, and when she
speaks positively, it's qualified. Here's a quote from another of her
books on a thread on Lanza as actor

http://groups.google.com/group/mariolanza/browse_thread/thread/7df29e8a6b34fb02/c5461b87a598b83f?lnk=gst&q=basinger#c5461b87a598b83f.

As far as Basinger’s comments about Serenade—it would seem that this
film, like her earlier paragraphs about Lanza—would simply take her
off track from her main theses and themes. Basinger points out that
Mann hated musicals—and Serenade, of course, isn’t exactly Guys and
Dolls—but clearly it isn’t the kind of movie Mann was working with at
that stage of his career. But It will be interesting to go back and
watch Serenade from the point of view of what Mann did do with the
film as the director, what he did bring to it from his cinematographic
vision and experience. It would seem in the case of Serenade, that
neither Mann nor Lanza were well-served by the continuous manipulation
and mauling of the original plot and script. Unlike Mann’s later Glenn
Miller Story (also not exactly the kind of film he usually directed),
they just couldn’t build the storyline on the music. It also seems
quite true that Lanza’s films frequently suffered from poor scripts
and inadequate direction, and it's important to note that in any
critique.

Apparently it is typical of Mann’s films that he situated Lanza’s
character as the hero as the focal point of the movie. Basinger says
that Mann’s technique was to do that “even though [the hero] may be
weak, criminal or psychotic, the audience is set up to identify with
him and his situtation. The hero’s position in the narrative dictates
the emotional situation the audience is going to be put through.”

Anyway, I love the movie, and I'm going to look forward to watching
this film again--and rereading your thoughts in "Serenade: an
Underrated Treasure" in the Essays and Reviews section. And excerpts
from Basinger's book on Mann are now on google books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=WTdffrlu9qYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=anthony+mann&source=bl&ots=3pT3X4rGwP&sig=nauEF4UQWSPKCBFTh-fTd1Nm1HU&hl=en&ei=Ynk4TKLlC4P6lwfz79XVBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=serenade&f=false.
Best, Lee Ann

[leeann]

Hi, Gill. I guess whether Lanza should or shouldn't have gone into
movies is still one of the biggest questions out there, and not too
many people are lukewarm about it!

Despite their shortcomings, though,I do love his movies; even Seven
Hills of Rome has its moments. It's partly the voice, but perhaps
also because they give us a record of
Lanza as what Armando Cesari has called "a total package." And also, I
think, because we get glimpses of the person--the sense of humor and
comedic timing, the inclusion of personal references (his parents, for
example), a transparency in relating to people that is more than
acting--so many things.

It's definitely pretty hard to appreciate into the expectations and
mindset of a movie-goer sixty years ago though. In some ways, and
particularly some movies, need to be watched as film history, I think,
if they're to be appreciated. You and Derek were certainly right on
target with the Gigli movie! Best, Lee Ann

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Lee Ann & Gill: A few random thoughts: firstly, Gill, *do* watch
Serenade if you get the chance (it was recently on TCM in NZ, so it
may well show up in Australia as well). It's a flawed film, but it
contains some great scenes, intermittently good acting from Lanza (he
may surprise you!) & some of his finest operatic singing, and a
memorable cast. Admittedly, the script is frustratingly uneven and
Mann's direction (mostly) uninspired, but for my money it's still the
most fascinating film of Lanza's career. Here's the link to my essay
on it:

http://groups.google.com/group/mariolanza/web/lanza-film-review-serenade

Lee Ann: I completely agree that any meaningful analysis of Lanza's
acting should take into account the quality of the scripts he was
working with and the skill of the directors. As Lanza himself said –
when his acting ability was publicly derided by Because You're Mine co-
scenarist Leonard Spigelgass – "Perhaps with a better script, my
acting might improve!" (pg. 150 in Armando's book) Too often, he was
saddled with dialogue that not even Montgomery Clift could deliver
convincingly. And apart from Mann, the directors Lanza was assigned
were undistinguished.

Take Richard Thorpe, for example, who prided himself on shooting
everything in one take. How on earth could an actor as inexperienced
as Lanza still was in 1950 possibly be expected to flourish under
those conditions?

I'd love to know if Anthony Mann shot multiple takes when he was
working on Serenade, or if he too employed Thorpe's "economy." I
certainly wish he'd persevered with further takes, or at least used
more careful editing, in a number of scenes, eg. the confrontation
with Sarita Montiel in San Miguel ("Your heart is dead!"). But then
again, Mann was probably treading a delicate path in not wishing to
antagonize an obviously nervous and insecure Lanza, who hadn't acted
in more than three and a half years. Perhaps for this reason, he
didn't always demand retakes when clearly they were needed.

Did Lanza diminish his talent by appearing in movies, as Gill
suggests? Well, the films were generally not worthy of him, but the
issue to me is not that he sold his talent short by appearing in films
per se, but that (for multiple reasons) his movie stardom subverted
his operatic ambitions. While I'm very fond of For the First Time (for
both sentimental and musical reasons), I do wish that Lanza had
stopped making films after Serenade and returned to opera. It was
time.

Cheers
Derek

[Joseph Fagan]

Hi Derek, Re-reading your excellent analysis of the movie Serenade
inspired me to watch it again, which I did last night. Your commentary
was spot on. The more I watch this novie, the more I enjoy it but I
want to speak to his acting which I thought was EXCELLENT....not good,
or passable...but exceptional ( save a few hammy scenes). I feel the
critics were being unduly harsh ( what else is new?). Some of this may
be due to Mario's appearance in some of the scenes which DID distract.
A prime example of this was the scene in the chapel where he did look
very bloated and unhealthy. This was doubly unfortunate because his
rendition of Shubert's Ave Maria still stands today as the best ever
recorded. IMO! Two other weaknesseses in the movie script were the
development of the deep infatuation with Joan Fontaine's character
( when did it take place? overnight?) and that non-sensible ending.
Otherwise, I thought the movie was good, not great, but good.....and
the singing was superb! I think one has to view this movie several
times to get full benefit,

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Joe: Glad you enjoyed re-reading that old essay. It was fun to write!

Yes, Mario does look bloated and unwell in the Ave Maria scene, but
for me the sweetness and believability of his acting here -- coupled
with that terrific piece of singing -- make this one of the most
memorable of all his film scenes.

Actually, years ago I remember reading a 1956 movie magazine article
on Serenade that quoted Anthony Mann as saying, "Just wait until you
see the Ave Maria scene. Mario's acting and singing will tear your
heart out!"

Mann knew what he was talking about.

Yes, the ending of the film is poor; in fact, that's a problem with
almost all of Lanza's films.

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

Here's a link to a recent blog entry devoted to Anthony Mann and
Serenade:

http://dcairns.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/super-mario/#comments

There are some interesting comments in it regarding Mario's acting,
Mann's direction -- e.g., "You can really see the moments he’s
interested in with Serenade (strong conflict, music), and really feel
those he’s sleepwalking through (most everything else)" -- and the
film's plot resolution versus the novel's. I was also intrigued by the
suggestion that the film "seems at times like a faint pre-echo of
[Alfred Hitchcock's] Vertigo."

[leeann]

Hi, Derek,

I think I've gone on ad infinitum (and sorry, ad nauseum) on Anthony Mann and Serenade in various threads here. But I've also had the opportunity to read the script recently (not easily found or obtained and very bound with use and sharing restrictions!). Truthfully, it reinforced the sense that this film could've been so much more with better direction from Mann.

I think there are two main points of divergence in talking about the script: one is the transition from novel to film; the second, the realization of the film script on the screen, as you're discussing on this thread.

To me, one of the biggest question marks in the film is the sequencing and the rhythm of the plot. I never sense a momentum, a buildup, a hierarchy of drama--particularly concerning the relationship between Damon and Kendall; yet, that's the trigger, the fulcrum upon which Damon's character development and the plot rest.

It's there in the script, I think, even though it seems to get lost in the movie. (Although I don't believe Fontaine's acting helps that much. She's fine as the self-centered heiress, but lacking as a romantic--even a scheming romantic--heroine.) Damon starts as a happy, realistically-grounded, vintner with opera aspirations--which I think Lanza plays awfully well--who extraordinarily rapidly and fairly inexplicably does a 180 degree turn and falls into obsessive and destructive love. It just doesn't seem to add up, and I have to rationalize his character too much on my own. In the script, there's explanation and momentum through the lens of the camera and through dialogue, through the scenes you've cited, and it's too bad those sections hit the cutting room floor.

What I found fascinating in the script was the combination of scene-setting and dialogue that Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts wrote about, and their inclusion of "My Destiny" as soundtrack background during pivotal moments. And I think their descriptive writing in setting scenes opened some of the most  compelling and dramatic cinematography in the film--scenes such as the Judas Day observation in the town square when Juana comes to the stricken Damon's aid or the deleted scenes you've described above.Yet when those scenes remained in the movie, and Mann filmed them as written, they are gripping.

But I  think that reading the script highlights something that's also evident in the film: maybe fuzzy vision about what this film was to be--film noir? romance? happy-ending feature? The inclusion--or at least over-emphasis--on scenes probably designed as audience-pleasers seems to point to that indecision. One such is the scene on the patio with Manuel and Concha; another, the scene with Winthrop and the German soprano.

In the film, they're pleasant distractions, but they're kind of off-key (unintended pun, but not deleted) Neither, as written, is essential to an already crowded film agenda that might have benefited from some streamlining.

Whom, then, did Goff and Roberts answer to? Whom did they have to please--besides the rigourous restrictions of the Hollywood  Production Code that eliminated the basic conflict of libido motivating Damon's character in Cain's novel?

There's so much to talk about, but as we seem to agree, clearly an overall artistic and thematic direction, stronger leadership would've put this movie over the edge. The raw material was scripted. I wish we had Mann's honest perspective about how he approached this film and why it turned out as it did.  Best, Lee Ann

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Lee Ann: Like you, I've always felt that Joan Fontaine's portrayal of Kendall lacked something: danger, perhaps, or something that would convince me of her character's psychological (and sexual) hold over Damon. It's there in the script, all right, especially in the deleted scene in Damon's dressing room that takes place shortly before the L'Arlesiana scene (see photo #172 in Armando's book for the publicity pic).

Joan Fontaine wasn't the only actress considered for the role of Kendall. As Armando pointed out a few years back, then 30-year-old Arlene Dahl (see attached photo from her 1956 film Wicked as They Come) was mentioned at one point, as was Tallulah Bankhead. Now the earthy and charismatic Tallulah (also see attached) would have been something! At 53 (as opposed to Fontaine's 38), she would have given her character's relationship with Damon an interesting "edge" :)

I too have always felt that the comic moments towards the end of the film---e.g., the brief encounter between Winthrop and Fraulein Hommell that you mentioned and, later at the party, Winthrop's quip about being afraid to mingle "without my armor"---, though funny, seemed out of place. There should be a sense of impending danger during these scenes, and the last thing the audience should be doing is laughing! But that's as much a criticism of the screenplay as it is of Mann.

I wonder if Mann storyboarded the screenplay? I ask that because of his botched handling of the climactic moment (when Juana almost kills Kendall), which is so at odds with Goff and Roberts's explicit instructions: close-up of the pianist's face rigid with horror and then a flash cut to Damon as his hands crash down on the piano, followed by a flash cut to the guests' horrified reactions, etc. The screenplay makes exciting reading at this point, and proper storyboarding could have helped in the process of translating that tension to the screen.

Isn't it fun speculating about all this? :)

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

I'm in the middle of writing an article on Serenade (the novel and the film) for an academic publication, and here's something curious I just learned about the movie: it was remade in Turkish in 1959 as The Broken Disk (Kirik Plak) starring the Turkish singing idol Zeki Müren (1931-1996). Cain biographer David Madden, who positively loathes Mann's film, calling it at various times "incredibly bland" and an "incredibly mutilated, bad adaptation," claims the Turkish film is the superior film version of the two.

Hmm. I wonder! It would be very interesting to see that film. Müren, incidentally, was an interesting character in his own right who happened to die of a heart attack while singing---causing a national outpouring of grief, according to this Wikipedia entry. You can hear him singing here:

http://www.timsah.com/Zeki-Muren-Simdi-Uzaklardasin/Nr0PV0jc1L8

One never knows where research on Lanza will lead them! :)

[Steff]

Hi Derek,

These two links might be a start!

http://dodjer.com/melodrama/3414-Zeki_Muren_The_Greatest_B_W_Turkish_Classical_Musical_Movie_1959.html

http://deepesttottenham.blogspot.com/2009/10/krk-plak-broken-disc-1959.html

Steff

[Derek McGovern]

Thanks for those, Steff!

On the strength of the two YouTube clips from The Broken Disk in the second link you gave, I'd say the movie was even less faithful to Cain than Mann's version! 

From what I can tell, though, they do have one thing in common: they both substituted the male antagonist with a female one.  

Cheers

Derek

[Steff]

Hi Derek

Are you familiar with this review about Cain's novel?

Steff

[Derek McGovern]

Thanks for sharing that review, Steff. I feel McDermott hits the nail on the head in his witty criticisms of Cain's drawing of the main character; in fact, he pretty much states what Lee Ann and I were arguing in this thread on Serenade the book vs. the film. (Goodness: what a lot of Serenade threads we have! :))

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

Whatever we might feel about Anthony Mann's generally disappointing (by his standards) direction of Serenade, I do appreciate that without him at the helm, the film could well have been another Student Prince fiasco. We're very lucky that he and Mario got on so well---and that, in general, filming seems to have proceeded pretty smoothly. As Armando points out in his book, Mann spent a lot of time with Lanza, easing him back into the demands of acting. And, let's face it, for a man who hadn't acted in three and a half years, it must have been very difficult starting off in Mexico, where he had to play a tortured character light years removed from any he'd played before! Not only that, but he was also playing a role that was uncomfortably autobiographical in some ways. As Mann said in a 1955 interview:

"As we went along I think [Lanza] realized he was re-enacting a great deal of his own life, but it didn't affect the quality of his performance."

It certainly didn't in the "Ave Maria" scene---one of Mario's best pieces of acting, in my opinion. As Mann told a reporter in another interview (and I'm paraphrasing slightly), "Just wait until you see and hear this scene. Lanza will tear your heart out."

And he certainly does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Y8t6tUAPQ

Yes, he's big here---probably at his peak weight in the film (220 pounds on arrival in Mexico; down to 198 a month later when they left, according to Mann)---but, as Mann says, "Fine for his characterization of a man's deterioration!"

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

A couple more things I noticed in the final shooting script for Serenade that I wish had ended up in the film:

1) At the end of the storm scene, instead of Damon/Mario & Juana/Sarita indulging in that cinematic cliche of two lovers not realizing that it's raining (and laughing at the realization), the screenplay has much better instructions: the camera moves swiftly away from Damon and Juana while they're still locked in their passionate embrace and pans up into the dark sky. There's "an ominous rumble of thunder." Now why didn't they film that??!! That thunder would have made it clear that there were still storm clouds (figuratively speaking) ahead for Damon and Juana.

And:

2) After Juana runs blindly from the soiree where she'd made the attempt to kill Kendall, there's supposed to be "a moment of truth" for Damon, when he looks at Kendall, and we see her in close-up, as she realizes for the first time that she's lost him, and her mask of confidence crumbles. Then, when Damon delivers the "She didn't have to kill you---you ARE dead" (note the emphasis in the script) line to her and walks out, the camera was supposed to move into a close-up shot on Kendall's "lost" face.

Oh, what a missed opportunity! I've always thought it was very odd that we never get to see Kendall's reaction to Damon's abandonment of her, and to think it was in the script all along....!!!

Incidentally, Kendall's final line in the film (to Juana): "Do you think that would free him?" isn't in the screenplay, so it must have been added at the last minute during filming.

Reading the Serenade screenplay has certainly made me wonder about some of the other Lanza films, and what was cut or changed. Could For the First Time have been better, for example? I wouldn't be at all surprised! Then there's Seven Hills, which was apparently altered beyond recognition between the time that Lanza first read it and when he arrived in Rome---"It's a different script, and a lousy one," he apparently said. [sigh]

Cheers
Derek

[Joseph Fagan]

Mario sure was right about 7 Hills being a lousy picture....amazing that it did as well as it did in the Box Office. To me, 7 Hills was his LOB of movies! I know Mario never watched the SP, but I wonder whether he skipped viewing any of the other movies he made ?...Joe

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Joe: I'm sure Mario watched all his movies (excluding The Student Prince). Certainly he'd seen Seven Hills by the time he went to London in November 1957 for the Palladium appearances. Although it wasn't released until 30 January 1958 in the US, it actually came out in Italy on 21 November 1957 (while he was in London). Mario rubbished the film (and, specifically, his performance in it) to reporters at his press conference at the Dorchester, so he must have been very surprised on his return to Italy to find that it was already on its way to becoming a box office hit there.

In one interview he gave in 1957, he certainly gave the impression of being puzzled that Serenade had failed "comparatively speaking" at the box office. It "had the best singing I ever did," he pointed out. (Lanza's father agreed too.) Mind you, the film cost over two million dollars to make, so it's not surprising (as Armando was saying to me the other day) that it didn't recoup its cost in the US.

One other comment I can recall him making about his films in an earlier interview was how relieved he was when he finally saw The Great Caruso and enjoyed it. "I could barely look at myself in my first two movies," he said.

Cheers
Derek

[leeann]

That seems another curious thing between script and film with Serenade. The most dramatic camera moments and perhaps scenes are scripted, yet as you point out, Derek, many don't survive to the film or there are places in the script where stronger camera direction might have been a good idea.

Mann was known for working closely with his camera people, for taking charge, for well--directing! I believe it's considered that part of his genius as a director lay in his ability to use the camera and the flow of cinematography to strengthen the atmosphere of his films and to deepen our understanding of his characters.

Yet it seems as if it was the writers who were the creative force behind the strongest--or at least potentially strongest--photographic work.

But that perception could also be my ignorance of the relationship between writers and directors during the time this film was made--and I imagine it differed among film genre as well.  Best, Lee Ann

[Steff]

Not sure if this is the right thread here to post this, however, I was somewhat surprised to read the following comment about "Serenade" and its two "leading" sopranos, Jean Fenn and Licia Albanese:

"Miss Fenn appears briefly in the new Mario Lanza picture, "Serenade," but regrettably, not to her advantage due to the nature of the part. A singer of much lesser accomplishment should have been selected. Music lovers who have seen this film, openly comment on the poor judgment displayed in the casting of both Miss Fenn and Miss Albanese in singing roles which belittle their prestige as vocal artists. Especially is this true in the role played by Miss Fenn." (Musical leader, Volumes 88-89, 1956).

Steff

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Steff: What a lot of snobbish nonsense! "Poor judgment" indeed. While Miss Fenn was a good sport to allow her singing to be described as akin to "the brakes on the Rome express," she was hardly tarnishing her career by appearing in the film. As for Licia Albanese, I hope she called the writer up and gave the pretentious prat a piece of her mind! After all, she got to sing in the film with a man whom (vocally) she ranked next to Caruso. Other sopranos should be so lucky!

Mind you, this mean-spirited swipe is no different from the outrageous nonsense being penned about Lanza that same year by the British Opera journal. Here's what the Earl of Harewood had to say in his review of the Serenade soundtrack album:

"Leaving aside the non-operatic bits, I doubt whether on this showing Mr Lanza can hope to win any new admirers from among operagoers. The best things are the Italian tenor aria from the Rosenkavalier levée scene (Mr Lanza's vocal exuberancies and indulgences must have been just what Strauss had in mind when he wrote this piece of musical satire) and the L'Arlesiana excerpt. The Otello duet with Licia Albanese is rather a travesty, with the soprano sobbing hysterically in the best Hollywood manner, and the tenor forcing his lyric voice unmercifully and making little or no sense of the words."

As a piece of criticism, this is on a par with the Burnett James review of the Mario! album in the British Record Review. (James was the learned critic who lamented, among other things, Lanza's supposed "lack of feeling for the words" on that great album.) It should have been obvious even to the most unrepentant stuffed shirt that Lanza's handling of the Rosenkavalier aria---far from containing "indulgences"---is actually a model of taste. (And yet his dramatic handling of the L'Arlesiana aria, which you'd normally expect a British critic to loathe, gets implied praise!) The comments about the Otello duet are even more absurd, and I find it bizarre that Harewood could ignore the greatness of the Monologue while claiming that Lanza's handling of the words made "little or no sense."

Happily, Harewood's harebrained harrumphing on the Otello duet is a decidedly minority opinion these days!

Cheers
Derek

[Michael McAdam]

When I hear Jean Fenn on that Serenade soundtrack I always wonder why Warner Bros would cast such a polar opposite to the formidable Licia Albanese in Lanza's "comeback" film?

 I ran across an unpublished snippet from Serenade on YouTube the other day. To my knowledge, this brief excerpt of the duet from the end of  La Bohème - Act III, which Lanza sings here with Ms Fenn, has only appeared on the Damon Lanza "Serenade - Master Tapes" CD. Consequently, many Forum members may never have heard it.

 

Lanza is in good spinto form here but I find Miss Fenn beyond mediocre (to me, she sounds like someone just singing in her kitchen while baking a pie!). Maybe that's why it was cut from the final print?

 

Here's the link to "Ci Lascieremo.....alla stagion dei fior" :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30zOgsNgubY

 

Mike

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Mike: The Lanza-Fenn "Ci Lasceremo" had already been around for quite some time when that Damon Lanza Productions CD came out in 2006. There's also a version with Mario on his own, since (as with the Serenade "O Soave Fanciulla"), Jean Fenn recorded her contribution at a later stage.

I don't actually care much for Lanza's singing here either, to be honest. He's a bit strained and heavy-handed. As to why it was cut from the release print, I'd say it was to do with the running time of the film. Originally, there was going to be a musical montage containing six numbers that showed Damon Vincenti's rise in opera, on the concert stage, as a recording artist, and on TV---and in this order: "Di Rigori Armato", "My Destiny" (with orchestra---in a recording studio), "Qual Occhio al Mondo" from Tosca, "Amor Ti Vieta," the "Ci Lasceremo" with Jean Fenn (lip-synched by Norma Zimmer), and "Di Quella Pira." If I'd had my way, the last two numbers would have been cut!

Why did Warners choose Jean Fenn rather than a bigger name soprano? I'd say it was because the soprano wasn't important in either Boheme scene. The focus was on Damon Vincenti's rise, after all. Having someone like Tebaldi in these scenes would have been a distraction! Besides, what great soprano would have been comfortable having her singing rubbished in the film? :)

The other thing is that Warners spent a lot of money on the film. All things considered, we were lucky to get Albanese---especially since her involvement wasn't confirmed until quite late into shooting. (I still find it amazing that filming was interrupted so that she and Mario could record the duet.)

Cheers
Derek

[Michael McAdam]

Derek, I haven't watched Serenade for a while now and can't remember if they showed the Lanza / Fenn duet, O Soave Fanciulla in its entirety or not?

One point you didn't mention with regard to Licia Albanese is the fact that after her full-length, dramatic contibution to the Dio Ti Giocondi duet that we hear on the LP (oops, CD now, thanks to you ;-) we barely get to see and hear one line of her and Lanza singing it together in the finished print; just a couple of seconds as I recall - a disrespect to her and all her effort I would think?

Again, I'm going from memory but isn't her singing of a couple of other lines only heard off-camera while Damon is filmed arguing with his manager in the wings?

 

Mike

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Mike: No, there's very little of the Fenn-Lanza "O Soave Fanciulla" duet in Serenade: it starts halfway through (from "Fremon nell'anima"), and we only get a couple of lines before it jarringly cuts to the final "Amor"s. There's considerably more of the Act III Otello duet in the film: a full two minutes on-screen, and then all of Albanese's six-line entreaty ("Esterrefatta fisso lo sguardo") is heard off-stage during the dramatic dressing room scene. We also hear the end of the duet (very creatively mixed from an audio perspective) in the scene in which Lanza/Vincenti destroys the bust of Joan Fontaine.  

Although the actual Serenade screenplay ends with Vincenti storming off the stage at the end of the duet, I feel that what we see in the film makes more sense. Had Mann elected to include a longer chunk of the ten-minute duet, the pacing of the film would have been upset.

By the way, it looks as though your comments about Jean Fenn have upset David Weaver of the Rense forum! In a post today, David laments the "dissing" of Jean Fenn, pointing out that she enjoyed a decent career at the Met. He also expresses his amazement that no one has ever interviewed Jean Fenn, "one of the last people still alive who performed with Mario Lanza." 

Actually, David's wrong on two counts. Jean Fenn never sang in person with Lanza; as I wrote earlier, her contributions to the two Boheme duets were recorded separately (presumably for logistical reasons). A pity, as I'm sure Lanza would have delivered a more appropriately sensitive Rodolfo if he'd actually been singing to Fenn. (He's pretty ham-fisted on both recordings.) I doubt she heard him singing in full voice when they were both lip-synching to "O Soave Fanciulla" in the film.

And Fenn has been interviewed about Lanza. In an article published by the Dallas Morning News on 25 October 1959, she praised Lanza's "sensational voice" and stated that the two of them had "got along beautifully" on the film set. (Steff sent me this article a while back, and we'll be adding it to our main site soon.)    

Cheers

Derek

     

[Derek McGovern]

A clarification to the above. I didn't mean to imply that the original Serenade screenplay ends with Vincenti storming off at the end of the Otello duet. What I meant was that in the screenplay, the performance of Otello ends with Vincenti walking out immediately after the duet (in other words, right before the Monologue.)  

[Derek McGovern]

A post from Joe:

Revisiting Serenade

I just viewed this film (my favorite Lana movie) the other night and was, once again, re-minded of how good an actor the untrained Mario was. Yes, he was in a few “hammy” scenes, but in most of the film he was excellent IMO. He was brilliant in the Othello scenes (both singing as well as acting) and his Ave Maria was the BEST ever recorded. A shame he was not given more credit for this very interesting movie.

But, here is the part that always gets me and I think detracts from the movie: Are we to really believe that Mario is so smitten after one brief evening with Kendall Hale?.  I realize the movie was long (maybe even too lengthy), but it lost much believability by NOT showing some sort of montage ( e.g. maybe a calendar flipping months) to show Damon becoming possessed by Kendall. Storming out of his very first lesson the night after the brief encounter with Kendall…really? Also, that start-up high C to begin the lesson was also pretty schmaltzy as well. I know Derek and others have commented on all these points, but this lack of direction almost makes me angry. What could have been, sigh.

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Joe: I moved your post to this thread, as I think it fits in better with the topic of Anthony Mann's direction.

Coincidentally, I've just submitted an article on Serenade (novel vs. film) to an academic journal, so this is all very fresh in my mind!

I couldn't agree more with you about the botched infatuation scene, and I feel it's the single biggest flaw in the film. It undermines everything that follows. As I mentioned in this post, if Mann had simply gone with the actual screenplay instructions for this scene, Vincenti's obsession with Hale wouldn't have come across as so ridiculously sudden and melodramatic. It amazes me that a director as accomplished as Mann would have allowed such a clumsy execution to end up in the finished film.

As for Mario's acting, well, they say a screen performance is often made in the editor's room, and certainly the moments of overacting that we see in the film---mainly reaction shots of Mario---could easily have been avoided simply by not cutting back to his grimaces and hammy reactions in a couple of scenes (the confrontation with Fontaine about the sculptor and the dramatic outdoor encounter with Montiel in Mexico---"You lived through the fever, but your heart is dead!"). Better still, as Armando pointed out earlier, Mann should have told Lanza "Less grimacing, Mario!"

Cheers
Derek

[norma]

Dear Derek,In Serenade I also found it strange that after Mario sings My Destiny to Joan Fontaine and the boxer storms out,she should say to Mario ,"I never said I loved him" when she hardly knows Mario.

[Michael McAdam]

Hi Derek,

I meant to get a clarification here from you vis-a-vis the method filmmakers employ when blending a vocal segment with the scene being shot. I know you have experience in this realm.

 

Ergo: your statement:  Jean Fenn never sang in person with Lanza; as I wrote earlier, her contributions to the two Boheme duets were recorded separately (presumably for logistical reasons). A pity, as I'm sure Lanza would have delivered a more appropriately sensitive Rodolfo if he'd actually been singing to Fenn. (He's pretty ham-fisted on both recordings.) I doubt she heard him singing in full voice when they were both lip-synching to "O Soave Fanciulla" in the film.

 

Am I correct in my understanding of what you are saying above that, as the cameras roll, the two actor/singers are lyp-syncing to an audio recording playing thru speakers off-camera? Your statement here makes it sound as though they hadn't recorded their duet together as of this time and were perhaps lyp-sincing to another recording, perhaps by someone else (or maybe just the music in the duet, sans vocal)?

 

Please clarify what you mean here, if you understand my confusion? Tks.

 

Mike

 

     

[leeann]

Mike, that's a fascinating question! I've never challenged the mental image of exactly what you write--singers lip-synching or singing-along-with a recording playing somewhere in the background! I imagine those techniques change over time, and thanks for bringing it up. All the best from the other end of your big country [Vancouver], Lee Ann

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Mike: Sorry for confusing you!

Lanza recorded "O Soave Fanciulla" and "Ci Lasceremo..." without Fenn in July 1955 (and we have bootlegs of these solo performances), and then late the following month Miss Fenn went into the Warner Bros. studios and recorded her parts, obviously singing along with Mario's pre-recorded contributions. And voilà! Two duets.

So when it came time to film the "O Soave Fanciulla" scene in Serenade (several months later), both Lanza and Fenn would have lip-synched to that single "grafted" recording featuring both their voices. And, yes, it's standard practice to play the recording through loudspeakers on the set while the singers lip-synch. In fact, there's an article on Serenade in which the writer talks about visiting the set to watch the filming of "O Paradiso." He mentions the Lanza recording booming off-set through speakers as Mario lip-synched to it.

In some instances, he must have been singing (though surely in half-voice only) along with his recording, as you can see his diaphragm moving. At other times (and Steff confirmed this from a reporter who watched the filming of the "Ave Maria" scene in For the First Time), he would have simply mimed.

Hope that all makes sense!

Cheers
Derek

P.S. In rare instances---My Fair Lady, for example---a singer has had to record the vocals after filming. Marni Nixon had to do that for a couple of the songs that Audrey Hepburn had already filmed in MFL using her own (substandard) singing. Now that's much more difficult, of course, has the singer is forced to keep in synch with the actor's mouth movements.

[Michael McAdam]

Tks for those  responses, Derek and Lee Ann.

I had visualised fairly accurately what the process entailed, I guess but was a little vague on how the Fenn/Lanza duets were recorded and filmed. Tks for the explanation there, Derek.

 

Speaking of Anthony Mann, I just rented the widescreen, re-processed 2-disc DVD of his epic El Cid (BluRay version currently only available as a UK PAL-format release....bummer!)

 

In this era, you would never see that cast of thousands (no CGI here), the absolutely authentic hand-made costumes, armour and heavy steel, hand-forged-in-Toledo swords that are on display in this feast of a film. Mann's direction is reminicent of his sweeping scenes in the old James Stewart westerns of the early to mid fifties. Great stuff! (easy to see now why those scenes between Heston and Loren looked so strained; given what we know now about their celebrated on-set feud during filming).

Apologies for turning this into a quasi movie review ;-))

 

Mike

[Michael McAdam]

Apologies for all the previous 'bumff' accompanying my post. Google is back to doing an auto-insert there again (as is its wont?).

I will fix that before my next post.

M.

[leeann]

Hi,  Mike. It's pretty interesting that you brought up El Cid and points of continuity with Mann's earlier films. That must be amazing to go back and watch El Cid as a period piece in its own right, as part of the age of film spectaculars--and then fitting it into how Mann handled other projects over time.

Besides the sweeping scenes (and on a more superficial level) maybe James Stewart and Charlton Heston had something else in common: horses.  After El Cid, Heston talked about the differences in filming a spectacular and a dialog-centered movie and he told a reporter that during filming, he could sit on a horse for weeks shooting battle scenes in the snow, not saying more than five scripted lines. It reminded him that when he'd first started acting in films, he'd been told, "In movies, kid, it's not how well you can act, but how well you can ride a horse to a mark." 

I'd still argue that the commonalities amid the diversity of Mann's film career really debunk biographers arguments that Serenade was an anomaly, and I still repeat, someone needs to say he just didn't do his best--or as student report cards state, "does not perform to expectations."

But I'd suspect Derek's recent scholarly article has a better, in-depth take on that. Best, Lee Ann

[Vincent Di Placido]

Very interesting posts!
Derek, Marni Nixon also was constrained with her West Side Story
dubbing as she had to overdub Natalie Wood's recorded vocals & already
filmed lip synching... Marni was such a pro, it must have been so
frustrating for her though to not be phrasing the songs her own way...
Here is an usual clip of Marni doing a "foreign dub test film" for The
Sound of Music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImH1EGcWbmk
Now as regards "Serenade" I just watched it again there & the
immediate infatuation between Kendall & Damon is just a mess... It is
such a shame, I think it is a combination of several elements, bad
script (for those scenes), editing, directing & the lack of chemistry
between Mario & Joan Fontaine, in fact the only moment they seem to
connect in any way is the scene just before "Dio Mi Potevi" there is a
moment when they look in each others eyes & I believed in their
chemistry... I know it is well documented they didn't get on well so
that is part of the problem also... Also I just don't get Joan
Fontaine at all, part of the reason I don't believe the infatuation is
that she leaves me cold, now Sarita Montiel that's a different story
altogether... :-)

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Vince: The dubbing that went on in West Side Story was mind-boggling! Not only were Richard Beymer (Tony) and Natalie dubbed, but Rita Moreno (Anita) had a ghost singer, Betty Wand, brought in on one of her songs ("I Have a Love"), and Russ Tamblyn's singing (as Riff) on "The Jet Song" was replaced during post-production---much to his surprise---by Tucker Smith, who also appeared in the film (as Ice) and sang "Cool." Evidently, the studio felt that no one would notice that the same singing voice was used for two characters!

[Mind you, Warners planned to do the same thing in Serenade by having Jean Fenn provide the singing not just for her character, but also for Norma Zimmer to lip-synch to in the filmed (but deleted) "Ci Lasceremo" scene.]

Ironically, even with all that dubbing in West Side Story---a movie I love, by the way---some of the singing is below par. There are "bum" notes throughout, especially from Jim Bryant (as Tony), whose intonation is pretty "dodgy," as you and I would say :) I'm not a great fan of Marni Nixon's voice either; it's just OK to me. (The waspish Pauline Kael once described it as "dreadfully impersonal.") But that was probably the point of using her services, since having an outstanding voice on the soundtrack would have made it even more obvious that Natalie Wood (and the other stars before and after her who also lip-synched to Nixon) wasn't doing her own singing.

Getting back to Serenade, as far as I know, Lanza and Fontaine got on reasonably well. It helped, of course, that filming was well under way before they did their scenes together---meaning that Mario would have overcome some of his nervousness about returning to acting by the time they met. (Appearing opposite an Academy-Award-winning actress would have been a little daunting, though!) Terry Robinson claimed on Peter Clayton's 1974 BBC radio doco that Lanza found Fontaine icy at first, and felt obliged to "loosen her up" by eating a hoagy sandwich packed with garlic before their big kiss scene. The result, Robinson claimed, was that "they became great friends"---but as Clayton commented after Robinson's anecdote, "Do you believe that?" :)

But I think there is a lack of on-screen chemistry between the two. Perhaps if Mann hadn't deleted the scene (immediately before the Lamento) in which Kendall visits Damon in his dressing room---and it's implied that Damon still desires her---we might feel a little differently. After all, Fontaine and Lanza have precious little intimate on-screen time together---really just the one scene---certainly not enough to establish their relationship.

Don't blame the screenwriters about the whole infatuation business, though! As I wrote earlier, the screenplay does a far better job of that "growing infatuation montage" than what we see in the film. It's quite sensuous---and that's exactly what the film needed at that point.

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

As I mentioned the other day on the "Serenade on DVD" thread, I recently managed to get hold of a copy of the final (August 1955) version of the Serenade screenplay. When I say "final," I mean the version that was used when shooting on the film commenced in San Miguel in late August. 

What fascinating reading! While I'm not able to quote directly from the screenplay here (having signed a strict user agreement), I can share an overview of what's in it. 

First of all, there's no doubt in my mind that the screenplay is superior to the film. In fact, the movie contains so many missed opportunities that Anthony Mann must have been far more distracted by his infatuation with Sarita Montiel than we'd previously realized.

For example, in the screenplay, there's a very creative series of dissolves in singing teacher Marcatello's studio that establish Damon's growing obsession with Kendall far more effectively than the clumsily executed version in the film. There's no extra dialogue to convey Damon's obsession, but the screenplay includes some rather symbolic and sensual shots to convey very economically that the poor lad is hopelessly infatuated. These involve flaming candles and the use of Kendall's framed photo with Damon's reflection on it.

Why on earth didn't Mann follow through with this? As it is in the film, the first-time viewer is barely aware that there's even a montage happening in the Marcatello studio scene, and it's so poorly executed that Damon comes across as a petulant schoolboy. Running time wouldn't have been a problem, as the extra footage would probably have been no more than a minute.

I also can't understand why the scene with Kendall immediately after Juana leaves Damon's dressing room (just prior to the Lamento di Federico scene) was cut. This is essential stuff, and clarifies why Damon attempts to drown his sorrows later that evening, and why he is afraid to go to New York. In the scene, which amounts to ten exchanges, it becomes obvious that Damon still retains sexual feelings for Kendall.

The would-be murder of Kendall is also far more gripping in the screenplay---exciting stuff, actually---with cutaways to the horrified pianist accompanying Juana's mock bullfight, and crucially specifies that Damon in this scene looks at Kendall as if for the first time, finally comprehending her malevolent character (and finally getting her out of his system).

Oh, Mr. Mann: what a film this could have been!

Other unfortunate lapses and/or omissions in the transfer from screenplay to film:

--the original musical montage contained six numbers that showed Damon's rise in opera, on the concert stage, as a recording artist, and on TV---and in this order: "Di Rigori Armato", "My Destiny" (with orchestra---in a recording studio), "Qual Occhio al Mondo" from Tosca, "Amor Ti Vieta," the Act III Boheme duet with Jean Fenn, and "Di Quella Pira." 

--the Act III duet from Otello with Albanese was supposed to run to the end, with Damon storming off the stage during the thundering opening bars just before the Monologue

--Damon should fixate on Kendall when he sees her in Lardelli's restaurant during the "O Soave Fanciulla" to the point that he completely ignores his singing partner; Kendall should also be surprised to see him!

--Damon's cousin Tonio ("Monte" in the screenplay) compares Damon's voice to a trunkful of diamonds immediately prior to the "La Danza"---that's why in the film Damon says "To open the trunk for one small diamond; how much can it hurt?"

--the ridiculous scene in Marcatello's studio in the film involving a high C on its own was originally supposed to be the scale of C, not a single note!

---Damon's rival for Juana's affections in San Miguel (Felipe) is supposed to be an intense, darkly handsome young man---not the obviously non-Mexican ham actor of no particular attraction that we see in the film :)

And many many other differences....

Interestingly enough, the one scene that wasn't in the August 1955 screenplay (and which was filmed in the final days of shooting) is the one outside Lardelli's restaurant with Damon and Juana.

Cheers
Derek