User Reviews

Is it better to be the lover or to be loved? This is the central question of "Rhapsody", a film about a young woman, Louise Durant (Elizabeth Taylor), and the two musicians between whom she divides her attention. Paul Bronte (Vittorio Gassman) is a violinist and James Guest (John Ericson) is a pianist. Each falls for the charms of Louise, though they differ in the way they choose to divide their time between Louise and their fledgling music careers.

The director of the film, Charles Vidor, may have overused filters in Ms. Taylor's closeups, but who am I to argue with the wonderful results? At age 22, she is the personification of radiant beauty in this film, and anyone can understand how these men might be distracted.

The film is filled with enjoyable music, and it should be mentioned that Gassman and Ericson have to fake playing some extremely difficult passages, which they do very well. As an aside, check out Vittorio Gassman in "Sharkey's Machine" (1981) if you want to see him play a contrastingly villainous role.

The film rolls along amicably until the finale, which is full of emotion and transcendence, making the film worthwhile. Louise unexpectedly finds understanding and is transported to a greater love. One of the musicians discovers within himself a strength he never knew he had. And the accompanying music is Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto--one of the most beautiful romantic pieces ever written.

I would describe the ending as Randian, a reflection of Ayn Rand's views on romantic love. Many misunderstand her lifeview as cold and calculating, but nothing could be further from the truth. Just as she celebrated the heroic in men/women, she championed heroic love between two people. Rachmaninoff's Second is not just romantic, it is triumphant. As the orchestra swells over the insistent notes of the piano, the music emphasizes the adoring look on the face of Louise and it celebrates the pianist's new-found egoism (self love, based upon his self-accomplishment). It's a beautiful scene on many levels and it elevates the film significantly.

Sadly, we all know that poor Liz didn't age very well, but in her prime she was second to none. She's absolutely luminous in this one, and she looks fantastic in every scene. Not a hair out of place, perfect makeup and a flawless wardrobe. Her character, Louise Durant, also seems to be pretty close to the real-life Elizabeth in some ways. There's an unintentionally funny scene where Louise blithely informs her father that she intends to divorce her new husband because he has become an inconvenience to her constant scheming. She also tries out for an exclusive music academy, but when her lifeless piano playing is revealed at her audition, she immediately and calmly switches tactics: "Professor, I want to be a student here. I will pay double what everyone else pays." Superb realization of her character and herself in just a few seconds.

This is an Elizabeth Taylor star vehicle, so she expertly and effortlessly inhabits the center of all the action, but the supporting cast is fantastic as well. Louis Calhern, Vittorio Gassman, John Ericson, Michael Chekhov and many others turn in beautifully natural performances. Mr. Gassman and Mr. Ericson actually seem to be playing their instruments in a quite realistic fashion.

Finally, last but certainly not least, the music itself is awe-inspiring. There's a LOT of gorgeous music frequently interspersed throughout the film, and it's tremendously impressive, to put it mildly. The soundtrack features Claudio Arrau on piano and Michael Rabin on violin, covering for Mr. Ericson and Mr. Gassman, respectively.

IMO, Miss Taylor was the ultimate movie star and this film gives ample evidence of all her beauty and femininity and talent and skill as well as her surefooted acceptance of and expertise in every one of those qualities. A woman who was perfectly comfortable in her own skin from Day One. "Rhapsody" is an excellent, well-made film. You won't regret seeing it.

I would watch this movie again, not necessarily for the luminous Elizabeth Taylor or the stunning European scenery, but to hear that glorious classical music of all the great composers in a terrific surround sound system that really brings out the passion of the music and the story. The plot really isn't too much as we've seen stories of grasping women before, but with its glorious Technicolor, it really becomes something special, and when Vittorio Gassman begins to play the violin, what gives his character passion is revealed beyond the romance with la Liz.

There are three men in Taylors life. Violinist Gassman, music agent John Erickson and her father, veteran actor Louis Calhern, who knows her better than she knows herself, and is aware of how dangerous she is to other men as well as herself. When Calhern meets Gassman, his distaste for Gassman's lack of culture outside of the music world is very apparent, but Calhern plays such a charming snob that it's impossible not to like him. He realizes that he is guilty of spoiling her to the point of irredeemable selfishness, but he doesn't know to the links that she will go to hang on to the men she claims to be in love with.

After driving Gassman away, Taylor unsuccessfully attempts suicide and in a rare moment, you get to see Taylor without any makeup as she lies in her recovery bed. Being comforted by Erikson gives her a look that indicates that the will to live has returned to her, but within days, she's making alternative plans to get away from him. This is Elizabeth Taylor at the height of her beauty, at the height of her stardom, and she is a vixen with charm and tenderness yet able to twist the knife when she does not get what she needs from the men she is manipulating.

The key scenes of Gassman and Erikson are quite different. Vittorio is romantic when things are going well, but a prima donna when playing the violin, infuriating maestro Michael Chekhov yet proven when he gets his way that he was right all along. Taylor becomes insanely jealous of his talent yet can't turn away when she has the opportunity to see him perform. On the other hand, Erickson is your typical boy next door, complicated in his love for Taylor, but so deeply in love with her, that his hurt is written all over his face with no words when she goes out of her way to dismiss him.

Certainly Taylor is stunning to look at, but it's Calhern who walks off the film with the acting honors. He is subtle in his every move, using sly words to try to turn Taylor's potential self destructive actions to another direction. you can't take your eyes off of Liz, and she shows that she has what it takes to create a complex portrayal that goes beyond just being beautiful. She represents Garbo from the 1930's MGM and Hedy Lamarr in the 1940's for being the alluring temptress, and this really represents her first opportunity to play a multifaceted character that is far more than eye candy. Charles Vidor, an expert at directing films of this type of musical passion (most memorably "A Song to Remember"), and he helps his film rise above being something ordinary, turning it into a true work of art.

When Elizabeth Taylor made "A Place in the Sun" in 1951, this was supposed to be her entry into more mature roles. In this film, for the first part of it, she sounds like a girl out in the rural areas of "National Velvet." She is churlish at best with a whining, annoying stature.

Louis Calhern, as her father, certainly proves again that Father Knows Best but to a certain degree.

It is with her attempted suicide in the film that she finds maturity and her performance improves.

She goes back and forth in her desires between two notable musicians, the violinist (Vittoria Gassman) and pianist John Ericson, both of whom are excellent in their respective roles. Ironically, Gassman was married to Shelley Winters, the latter being a rival to Taylor in "Place in the Sun."

The music here is divine and Tchaikovsky was never better.

Louise Durant, the central player in this film, is what might be described as a classical groupie. She is a wealthy heiress who attaches herself to two handsome young classical musicians, both students at the Conservatoire in Zurich, in turn. The two men in her life are Paul (dark, violinist, Continental European although his precise nationality is never stated) and James (blond, pianist, American). The story falls into two acts. In Act I Louise falls in love with Paul, but their romance is short-lived because she cannot accept that the life of a classical musician involves a great deal of hard work which limits the time they can spend together.

Fast forward to the beginning of Act II. A lot appears to have happened in the interval between the acts. We learn that Louise is now married to James (a relatively minor figure in Act I), that he has given up his musical career for her and that he is living off her money. These developments, however, do not appear to have brought him happiness because the main thing he spends Louise's money on is drink and he has become an alcoholic. Act II is the story of James's efforts to turn his life around, to kick his drink habit and to rediscover his love of music. Paul, however, has now reappeared in Louise's life and she must decide whether to elope with him or stay with her husband.

Which way does she decide? I was going to say that I won't write a spoiler, but of course in the fifties the Hays Office effectively used to write the spoilers for the audience. Anyone with any knowledge of the requirements of the Production Code, which forbade happy endings for anyone guilty of marital infidelity, will be able to predict, long before the closing titles, exactly how the story will end.

Elizabeth Taylor, at the height of her beauty, here experiments with a boyishly short haircut, and gets away with it. (This look may have been inspired by Audrey Hepburn, Hollywood's "new kid on the block" in 1954. Audrey was in fact three years older than Elizabeth, but it was the younger woman who had had a longer film career, going back to her days as a child star in the early forties). This is, however, far from being Taylor's best performance. Louise, by rights, should be someone we dislike- a selfish, manipulative woman who comes close to destroying James's musical career and would have destroyed Paul's had he not had enough sense to see through her- but Taylor does her best to make us like her, playing her as a conventional romantic heroine. She fails, of course; perhaps Taylor's own complex love life- at 22 she already had one divorce behind her- prevented her from realising just how emotionally destructive women like Louise can be in real life.

This is not a film for anyone with no interest in classical music. Apart from one early scene where Paul is arguing with a conductor about the interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, the film does not go into the technicalities of the subject in any great depth, but we get to hear lengthy excerpts from the Tchaikovsky and from Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. Now I personally could listen to both these composers all day long, but I suspect that those who do not share my love of classical music will be reaching for the fast-forward button during these passages.

The film is attractively shot in vivid colour, but the storyline and the dialogue rarely, if ever, rise above the level of a lurid and melodramatic soap opera. For Liz Taylor completists only. 5/10 (4/10 for the film itself, with a bonus point for the music).

I bumped into this film today, read a couple of reviews here and decided to see what the fuss was all about.

Yes the music is central here as is the extreme devotion the characters dedicate to it. Obsession and drive/ambition to be the best in the world of the concert hall has and always will be the focus of the soloist.

The violinist and pianist are also competing for the love of a woman who has no clue about that ambition and obsession. Taylor does a good job of it, and realizes finally near the end that she can be part of the musical life of one she loves.

Love and music both win out at the end.

This film also reminds me of "The Competition" with Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving. Again competing and winning in love and music prevails in that film as well. I wouldn't be surprised if the producer and director of "The Competition" did an intensive study of "Rhapsody" to put their film together.

One other thing, both Gassman and Ericson were excellent in mimicking their performances on their respective instruments. It is not easy accomplishing that, and both Dreyfuss and Irving did as well in "The Competition," which I recommend as a follow-up to this film.

In the latter half of 1953, director Charles Vidor signed a one-picture-a-year deal with M-G-M. The films he directed under this arrangement were Rhapsody (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955) and The Swan (1956).

Incredibly based on the novel, "Maurice Guest", by Henry Handel Richardson, Rhapsody is a confused melange of hokum and sentiment.

In his first Hollywood movie, Italy's Vittorio Gassman is even more boorish than usual in his account of the student-turned-violinist, but the film is saved by the radiant charm with which Elizabeth Taylor imbues her role as the wealthy ingénue.

Beautifully photographed by Robert Planck against attractive settings in Zurich and the Engadine, Miss Taylor is expertly guided through the twists of a corny plot that has John Ericson and Louis Calhern interspersed with a few snippets of Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Rachmaninoff, all of which are indifferently played by Michael Rabin and Claudio Arrau.

Another pampered lady of wealth, another rebellious daughter of another rich man, Liz is the destructive element in the lives of two musicians…

A girl with a lot of time on her hands, she desires urgent attention… So, while Vittorio Gassman intently practices his scales, the poor little rich girl tickles his ears or reclines indifferently on elegantly upholstered divans… She's the aimless femme fatale, the idle jet set flirt: decorative, but useless…

As usual, Taylor plays a wealthy girl who couldn't make her mind between two quite different musicians, each of whom has his weakness… Gassman, a tough-minded violinist, will not mix business with pleasure—its art before Liz… But John Ericson, a brilliant pianist, cannot so easily resist the Taylor enchantment, and he submits under, taking to drink under the strain of living with Liz and her millions…

The film is a tedious romantic drama which vainly attempted a smart veneer but remains justly proud of a splendid musical soundtrack