This biopic about Chopin doesn't have great user ratings, but I enjoyed it. It gets a lot of guff for not being historically accurate, but I don't care about that. I know enough not to expect movies from the 1940s to be reliable from a historical perspective. Instead, it's an opulent drama with terrific production values and some good performances from Paul Muni, Merle Oberon, and Cornel Wilde (who received his lone Best Actor Oscar nomination for this film). The movie is especially harsh to the character of George Sand, played by Oberon, and it made me realize I've never read a single Sand novel, and now am curious about them.
Despite its lackluster reception now, "A Song to Remember" did quite well back in the day and scored six Oscar nominations in 1945. In addition to Wilde's nomination, it received nods for Best Original Motion Picture Story, Best Color Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Dramatic or Comedy Score, and Best Sound Recording. The cinematography nomination was deserved, and is especially notable in a clever reveal part way through the movie that involves a piano recital being played in the dark. A montage late in the movie that I just knew had to be coming in a movie like this justified the film's editing nomination. But I don't know how on earth it was nominated for Best Dramatic/Comedy Score, as I don't believe any of the music in the film was written originally for it, and there was a separate category of Musical Scoring at the time to honor scores that were adapted from other sources. Chalk it up to weird eligibility rules from Oscar's earlier days.
Grade: A-
Despite its lackluster reception now, "A Song to Remember" did quite well back in the day and scored six Oscar nominations in 1945. In addition to Wilde's nomination, it received nods for Best Original Motion Picture Story, Best Color Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Dramatic or Comedy Score, and Best Sound Recording. The cinematography nomination was deserved, and is especially notable in a clever reveal part way through the movie that involves a piano recital being played in the dark. A montage late in the movie that I just knew had to be coming in a movie like this justified the film's editing nomination. But I don't know how on earth it was nominated for Best Dramatic/Comedy Score, as I don't believe any of the music in the film was written originally for it, and there was a separate category of Musical Scoring at the time to honor scores that were adapted from other sources. Chalk it up to weird eligibility rules from Oscar's earlier days.
Grade: A-