This article is about the 1952 musical

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 comedy film

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

. For other uses see Because You're Mine (disambiguation).
Because You're Mine is a 1952 musical

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 comedy film

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 starring Mario Lanza

Mario Lanza

right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....

. Directed by Alexander Hall

Alexander Hall

Alexander Hall was an American theatre actor and film director....

, the film also stars Doretta Morrow, James Whitmore

James Whitmore

James Allen Whitmore, Jr. was an American film and stage actor.-Early life:Born in White Plains, New York, to Florence Belle and James Allen Whitmore, Sr., a park commission official, Whitmore attended Amherst Central High School in Snyder, New York, before graduating from The Choate School in...

, and Dean Miller

Dean Miller (broadcaster)

Dean Miller, born Dean C. Stuhlmueller , was an American actor and broadcaster, perhaps best known for his role as the son-in-law in the CBS sitcom December Bride...

.

Plot

Opera singer superstar Renato Rossano is drafted

Conscription in the United States

Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...

 into the U.S. Army. His Sergeant, "Bat" Batterson is an opera fan who admires Rossano and wishes Rossano to appraise his sister's singing voice. The rest of his platoon as well as the company commander disapproves of Batterson's showing favourtism to Rossano by excusing him from normal training. Rossano also schemes to have Master Sgt Batterson allow him to go to New York supposedly to have his manager appraise Batterson's sister, Brigit's singing voice but in reality allowing him to do a performance.

Production

The filming was interrupted and during the hiatus Lanza put on a considerable amount of weight. According to his manager, Lanza then began to lose weight and ended filming at less than 160 pounds. This resulted in some challenges for both the wardrobe artists and the film editors who had to deal with Lanza's substantial fluctuations in weight over the course of production. In one scene, Lanza's character enters a church. In the exterior, shot late in the filming schedule, he looks trim and slim in his military uniform. But, when he steps inside, in a scene filmed earlier, he is noticeably and considerably heavier.

The soldiers in the film wear an imaginary shoulder sleeve insignia that resembles the 28th Infantry Division that is worn by actual soldiers in footage of a military parade used in the movie.

Music

The title song of Because You're Mine earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. It was written by Sammy Cahn

Sammy Cahn

Sammy Cahn was an American lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premiered by recording companies in the Greater Los Angeles Area...

 and Nicholas Brodszky and became Lanza's third and final million-selling effort.

Musical highlights in the film included "Granada

Granada (song)

"Granada" is a Mexican song written in 1932 by Agustín Lara. The song is about the Spanish city of Granada and has become a "standard" in music repertoire....

", "The Lord's Prayer", and "Addio, Addio" from Rigoletto

Rigoletto

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...

.

Critical reception

Upon its release, Because You're Mine was criticized as being a step backwards artistically for Lanza after the success of The Great Caruso

The Great Caruso

The Great Caruso is a 1951 biographical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Joe Pasternak with Jesse L. Lasky as associate producer from a screenplay by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig. The original music was by Johnny Green and the cinematography by...

(1951) the previous year. Nevertheless, it was chosen for the inaugural Royal Command Film Performance of Queen Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

's reign, and was a solid box office success.

Writing in The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Bosley Crowther criticised the banality of the film's plot, but went on to observe that, "It's really Mario Lanza's singing that should and will attract attention to this technicolored film."