Susan Hayward received her third Best Actress nomination for With A Song In My Heart, the musical biography of Jane Froman one of the best singers around in that era. In truth she should have shared that nomination with the voice of Jane for whom Hayward lip synchs the vocals. Together they're combination that can't be beat.
The film is done with the technique of three of the people closest in her life reminiscing in thought Jane's story. Two of the three are her husbands, David Wayne and Rory Calhoun and the third is nurse Thelma Ritter who met her at the moment of her greatest crisis and kind of attached herself to Froman. Thelma Ritter got one of her nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category.
Froman was a kid fresh from Missouri when at an audition at a radio station she meets David Wayne as Don Ross who is also a performer. But when he meets and marries Froman his career takes a distinct backseat to her's. That's the cause of a lot of friction which was building up until Pearl Harbor when everyone's problems get put on hold.
While going to entertain troops via neutral Portugal, Froman's plane crashes in the Tagus River in Lisbon's harbor. Fifteen people out of thirty nine survive the crash including pilot Rory Calhoun who personally rescues her. With multiple injuries, it's a long road to recovery and those multiple injuries require multiple surgeries. That's where nurse Thelma Ritter comes in who uses every kind of psychological gambit to keep Froman going.
The musical numbers are from a variety of sources and not all of them copyrighted by 20th Century Fox. I'm sure Darryl Zanuck laid out quite a bit of change for the music rights to perform here. Hayward runs the gamut of emotions playing Jane Froman at all stages of her career which did continue to roughly about 1960 when she retired. After the action of this film she married for a third time to an old friend from her small Missouri town and really went back to her roots. Who says you can't go home?
The sale of the soundtrack album of this film revived Froman's career quite a bit. On a television show she hosted, she introduced the song I Believe which sold a lot of records from a variety of artist including Jane. I know we had the ten inch LP at my house and I believe I still have it. The scoring of the various musical sources for this film got With A Song In My Heart's only Oscar for Alfred Newman. The film was also nominated for Costume Design and Sound Recording.
Getting his first real notice in the film was Robert Wagner in a small role as a shy paratrooper who Froman meets at a New York nightclub and later in hospital in post war Germany. No doubt that this man was going to have a career.
With A Song In My Heart is a perfect musical film in every respect, staging, music, and acting. And it's a permanent memorial to the great careers of both Jane Froman and Susan Hayward.
The film is done with the technique of three of the people closest in her life reminiscing in thought Jane's story. Two of the three are her husbands, David Wayne and Rory Calhoun and the third is nurse Thelma Ritter who met her at the moment of her greatest crisis and kind of attached herself to Froman. Thelma Ritter got one of her nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category.
Froman was a kid fresh from Missouri when at an audition at a radio station she meets David Wayne as Don Ross who is also a performer. But when he meets and marries Froman his career takes a distinct backseat to her's. That's the cause of a lot of friction which was building up until Pearl Harbor when everyone's problems get put on hold.
While going to entertain troops via neutral Portugal, Froman's plane crashes in the Tagus River in Lisbon's harbor. Fifteen people out of thirty nine survive the crash including pilot Rory Calhoun who personally rescues her. With multiple injuries, it's a long road to recovery and those multiple injuries require multiple surgeries. That's where nurse Thelma Ritter comes in who uses every kind of psychological gambit to keep Froman going.
The musical numbers are from a variety of sources and not all of them copyrighted by 20th Century Fox. I'm sure Darryl Zanuck laid out quite a bit of change for the music rights to perform here. Hayward runs the gamut of emotions playing Jane Froman at all stages of her career which did continue to roughly about 1960 when she retired. After the action of this film she married for a third time to an old friend from her small Missouri town and really went back to her roots. Who says you can't go home?
The sale of the soundtrack album of this film revived Froman's career quite a bit. On a television show she hosted, she introduced the song I Believe which sold a lot of records from a variety of artist including Jane. I know we had the ten inch LP at my house and I believe I still have it. The scoring of the various musical sources for this film got With A Song In My Heart's only Oscar for Alfred Newman. The film was also nominated for Costume Design and Sound Recording.
Getting his first real notice in the film was Robert Wagner in a small role as a shy paratrooper who Froman meets at a New York nightclub and later in hospital in post war Germany. No doubt that this man was going to have a career.
With A Song In My Heart is a perfect musical film in every respect, staging, music, and acting. And it's a permanent memorial to the great careers of both Jane Froman and Susan Hayward.