Seeing this film for the first time almost seventy years after it was made was a revelation. The film casts Mario Lanza as a country boy who rises to fame as an opera singer. Never much of a Lanza fan, I was mesmerized by his charisma and that beautiful voice, which outshines even the magnificent singing of costar Kathryn Grayson as a snooty soprano who eventually falls for him. Filled with shots of the Big Easy in all of its diversity and European style and scattered with the colorful faces of extras looking like authentic residents, it is a visual as well as audio treat. It is also delightful to see a very young Rita Moreno demonstrate some of the dancing and acting ability that will earn her an Oscar for "West Side Story" eleven years later. Although the movie is filled with great opera snippets, the song that put Lanza at the top of the sex-appeal heap is "Be My Love."
Review of The Toast of New Orleans
