Snooty opera singer meets a rough-and-tumble fisherman in the Louisiana bayous, but this fisherman can sing! Her agent lures him away to New Orleans to teach him to sing opera, but comes to...
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In Philadelphia, the soprano Prudence Budell returns from Europe after a period of five years training in the best Europeans music schools. Her millionaire grandmother Abigail Trent Budell ... See full summary »
Director:
Norman Taurog
Stars:
Kathryn Grayson,
José Iturbi,
Ethel Barrymore
Loosely traces the life of tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921). He loves Musetta, in his home town of Naples, and then Dorothy, the daughter of one of the Metropolitan Opera's patrons. Caruso ... See full summary »
A girl is engaged to the local richman, but meanwhile she has dreams about the legendary pirate Macoco. A traveling singer falls in love with her and to impress her he poses as the pirate.
A waitress at the Warner Bros. commissary is anxious to break into pictures. She thinks her big break may have arrived when actors Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan agree to help her.
Biography of songwriter, Broadway pioneer, Jerome Kern. Unable to find immediate success in the USA, Kern sought recognition abroad. He journeyed to England where his dreams of success became real and where he met his future wife Eva.
Jed Potter looks back on a love triangle conducted over the course of years and between musical numbers. Dancer Jed loves showgirl Mary, who loves compulsive nightclub-opener Johnny, who ... See full summary »
In WWI dancer Jerry Jones stages an all-soldier show on Broadway, called Yip Yip Yaphank. Wounded in the war, he becomes a producer. In WWII his son Johnny Jones, who was before his ... See full summary »
Snooty opera singer meets a rough-and-tumble fisherman in the Louisiana bayous, but this fisherman can sing! Her agent lures him away to New Orleans to teach him to sing opera, but comes to regret this rash decision when the singers fall in love. Written by
Ed Lorusso
Although they had previously appeared together in That Midnight Kiss (1949), Kathryn Grayson and Mario Lanza did not get along while making this film. While shooting the love duet scene from "Madame Butterfly," Grayson recalled that Lanza kept trying to French kiss her, which was made even more unpleasant by the fact that he kept eating garlic before shooting. To counter this, Grayson had costume designer Helen Rose sew pieces of brass inside her glove. Each time Lanza attempted to French kiss her, Grayson would smack him in the face with her brass-loaded glove. One of these smacks was included in the movie. See more »
Goofs
Three-quarters of the way through the "Tina-Lina," Pierre's trousers develop a tear at the seam near the hip, which magically repairs itself in the next shot. See more »
Quotes
Oscar:
Since society began there's been a way of doing things right and a way of doing them wrong.
See more »
With the success that Mario Lanza and Kathryn Grayson had in That Midnight Kiss, MGM knew it had a box office team of appeal. The following year the two of them moved from contemporary Philadelphia to pre-World War I, New Orleans.
People paid their money to hear Mario sing and really didn't care about the plots of his films. Lanza was cast as an opera singing truck driver in That Midnight Kiss, as an opera singer drafted into the army in Because You're Mine, and the greatest opera singer of all in The Great Caruso. I think we can see a pattern forming here.
In The Toast of New Orleans Lanza plays a shrimp fisherman who works on the boat with his uncle J. Carrol Naish. When opera singer Kathryn Grayson comes to town, Lanza boisterously and impulsively joins her in a duet of Be My Love. Her manager and New Orleans opera kingpin, David Niven is as impressed as everyone else was in 1950 with Mario's voice. He's even willing to overlook to some extent the fact he's moving in on Grayson.
Acting wise The Toast of New Orleans is no strain on anybody. Mario and Kathryn play a pair of singers and Mario as in all of his films, just played himself. It's interesting that the only times he attempted to play a role from classic operetta, The Student Prince and The Vagabond King it didn't work out for him.
As for David Niven, he's as debonair and charming as he always was. Niven carried more films on the strength of his charm than any other star in the sound era.
But no one worried about acting and a plot in this film. Like That Midnight Kiss, The Toast of New Orleans has a nice mixture of classical opera and some good songs by Nicholas Brodzsky and Sammy Cahn to round out a very full score. One of the songs, Be My Love, became Mario Lanza's signature song, his biggest selling record on RCA Victor Red Seal label. You could not go ANYWHERE in 1950 without hearing Be My Love coming out of some radio. Be My Love was nominated for Best Song in 1950, but lost to Mona Lisa.
Norman Taurog directed Mario in this film, he had previously won an Oscar for Skippy and had directed Spencer Tracy to his second Academy Award in Boy's Town. Taurog was an interesting choice for a director to pilot a picture with a personality like Lanza. Later on Taurog would end his career directing nine of Elvis Presley's feature films, another instance of him directing a mega-pop personality successfully.
The Toast of New Orleans is for Mario Lanza fans everywhere and this review is dedicated to my father who was a big fan.
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With the success that Mario Lanza and Kathryn Grayson had in That Midnight Kiss, MGM knew it had a box office team of appeal. The following year the two of them moved from contemporary Philadelphia to pre-World War I, New Orleans.
People paid their money to hear Mario sing and really didn't care about the plots of his films. Lanza was cast as an opera singing truck driver in That Midnight Kiss, as an opera singer drafted into the army in Because You're Mine, and the greatest opera singer of all in The Great Caruso. I think we can see a pattern forming here.
In The Toast of New Orleans Lanza plays a shrimp fisherman who works on the boat with his uncle J. Carrol Naish. When opera singer Kathryn Grayson comes to town, Lanza boisterously and impulsively joins her in a duet of Be My Love. Her manager and New Orleans opera kingpin, David Niven is as impressed as everyone else was in 1950 with Mario's voice. He's even willing to overlook to some extent the fact he's moving in on Grayson.
Acting wise The Toast of New Orleans is no strain on anybody. Mario and Kathryn play a pair of singers and Mario as in all of his films, just played himself. It's interesting that the only times he attempted to play a role from classic operetta, The Student Prince and The Vagabond King it didn't work out for him.
As for David Niven, he's as debonair and charming as he always was. Niven carried more films on the strength of his charm than any other star in the sound era.
But no one worried about acting and a plot in this film. Like That Midnight Kiss, The Toast of New Orleans has a nice mixture of classical opera and some good songs by Nicholas Brodzsky and Sammy Cahn to round out a very full score. One of the songs, Be My Love, became Mario Lanza's signature song, his biggest selling record on RCA Victor Red Seal label. You could not go ANYWHERE in 1950 without hearing Be My Love coming out of some radio. Be My Love was nominated for Best Song in 1950, but lost to Mona Lisa.
Norman Taurog directed Mario in this film, he had previously won an Oscar for Skippy and had directed Spencer Tracy to his second Academy Award in Boy's Town. Taurog was an interesting choice for a director to pilot a picture with a personality like Lanza. Later on Taurog would end his career directing nine of Elvis Presley's feature films, another instance of him directing a mega-pop personality successfully.
The Toast of New Orleans is for Mario Lanza fans everywhere and this review is dedicated to my father who was a big fan.