Rhapsody in Blue

They Say...

Review by William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

In 1945, only eight years after the premature death of composer George Gershwin, Warner Bros. Pictures undertook the screen biography Rhapsody in Blue, named after his most famous classical work. The production came soon enough to feature some of the artists who had worked with Gershwin playing themselves: Al Jolson, Paul Whiteman, Oscar Levant. With an extensive running time of two hours and 19 minutes, the film had plenty of room for Gershwin's music, which was a good thing, since Howard Koch and Elliot Paul's screenplay was as clichéd as it was factually inaccurate. By far the best thing about the picture was its music, and, with the 50-year limit on copyrights in Europe, the Great Movie Themes label of Promo Sound AG has issued its version of a soundtrack album, taking audio directly from the film. That means there's dialogue spoken over the music in places, some of which will sound odd to anyone who hasn't seen the movie. For example, at the end of several pieces, the actor Morris Carnovsky can be heard noting the time of the selection (always incorrectly, as it turns out). Carnovsky played Gershwin's father who, supposedly, judged his compositions by how long they were. Despite such distractions, there are several excellent performances here, including Jolson's energetic rendering of "Swanee" (albeit in his lower 1940s voice) and a nearly complete version of "Rhapsody in Blue" with Ray Turner playing the piano for actor Robert Alda, who portrayed Gershwin. A more legitimate soundtrack album no doubt would be better constructed, but this one demonstrates that, whatever the film's shortcomings as a work of biography, it successfully presented some of Gershwin's best music.