jkucharik Review of With a Song in My Heart

With a Song in My Heart (1952)

Like Good Movie Music from the 40s & 50s? This Flick's for You!

[10/10 · 9 October 2007]

The story of Jane Froman, a remarkable woman and radio personality of the 1930s & 40s, who faced much tragedy in her own life, but selflessly dedicated herself to making others happy through her music, particularly the wounded troops fighting in World War II. An excellent and moving story, but the music is the key success to this film. The real Jane Froman sings the many familiar songs for the entire soundtrack, though the lead is played by Miss Susan Hayward. Susan does an outstanding job of matching Jane's voice to her own movements and closely resembles Miss Froman in physical appearance. It is difficult to realize it is not really Susan singing herself! The orchestration behind Miss Froman is outstanding! Lush strings and full rich background music accompany her unmistakable voice. After this movie was released, Capitol Records released a so-called "soundtrack" album (LP) in the 1950s - however it is a studio version of all the songs in the movie. I have in my collection, both the original 12" LP and the 78RPM box-set recordings. The keen ear will note important differences on the record from the film.....and while it is generally a nice recording - it lacks the "uumph" of the real film music and is disappointing. They have since re-released this collection on CD. With today's technology, I see no reason why the real-film music can't be extracted and recorded onto CD directly from the movie soundtrack...but what do I know?! Watch this movie if you want good solid G-rated entertainment that does not have any of today's garbage in it! You won't be sorry - and (like me) you may wish you had lived during those days of great music, when people had pride and respect for their country and others. Unfortunately, I'm 46 so I missed that era entirely.