Song Without End
Encyclopedia
Song Without End, subtitled The Story of Franz Liszt
(1960
) is a biographical
film romance
made by Columbia Pictures
. It was directed by Charles Vidor
, who died during the shooting of the picture and was replaced by George Cukor
. It was produced by William Goetz
from a screenplay
by Oscar Millard
, revised (uncredited) by Walter Bernstein
. The music score was by Morris Stoloff
and Harry Sukman with music by Franz Liszt, and the cinematography
by James Wong Howe
and Charles Lang
(uncredited).
The film starred Dirk Bogarde
as Liszt, Capucine
as Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein
, and Geneviève Page
as Marie d'Agoult
, with Patricia Morison
as George Sand
, Alexander Davion as Frédéric Chopin
, Lyndon Brook
as Richard Wagner
, Albert Rueprecht as Prince Felix Lichnowsky
, Erland Erlandsen as Sigismond Thalberg
, Ivan Desny
, Martita Hunt
, Lou Jacobi
, and Marcel Dalio
.
was hired to write and produce with William Dieterle
directing. When this version failed to materialize the studio announced in 1955 that Gottfried Reinhardt had been commissioned to write a new screenplay. Finally in 1958, veteran producer William Goetz took over the project with Oscar Millard as his screenwriter. Charles Vidor, who had previously directed A Song to Remember
(1945), a biopic of Frédéric Chopin
, was assigned to direct.
As nearly forty musical selections would be heard in the film, Morris Stoloff
, head of Columbia's music department, began immediate work on the soundtrack. After selecting the pieces to be played, he engaged Jorge Bolet
, the Roger Wagner Chorale and the Los Angeles Philharmonic
to perform the score. The recording of the music was completed prior to the start of production so that Bogarde could learn the finger movements necessary to make him appear to be playing the piano realistically in the film. Musical advisor Victor Aller
spent three weeks rehearsing Bogarde in proper piano technique.
Academy Award for Morris Stoloff and Harry Sukman and the Golden Globe Award
for Best Motion Picture (Musical).
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
(1960
1960 in film
The year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I...
) is a biographical
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
film romance
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
made by Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. It was directed by Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor was a film director.-Biography:Born Károly Vidor to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he served in the Hungarian Army during World War I...
, who died during the shooting of the picture and was replaced by George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
. It was produced by William Goetz
William Goetz
William Goetz was an American Hollywood film producer and studio executive. William Goetz died of cancer in 1969 at his home in Los Angeles and was buried in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California....
from a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Oscar Millard
Oscar Millard
English writer Oscar Millard found success in Hollywood when he collaborated on the screenplay to the 1949 hit Come to the Stable, a comedy about nuns...
, revised (uncredited) by Walter Bernstein
Walter Bernstein
Walter Bernstein is an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.-Early life:...
. The music score was by Morris Stoloff
Morris Stoloff
Morris Stoloff was a musical composer.Stoloff worked as a music director at Columbia Pictures from 1936 to 1962...
and Harry Sukman with music by Franz Liszt, and the cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
by James Wong Howe
James Wong Howe
James Wong Howe, A.S.C. was a Chinese American cinematographer who worked on over 130 films...
and Charles Lang
Charles Lang
Charles Bryant Lang, Jr., A.S.C. was an American cinematographer.Early in his career he worked with the Akeley camera, a gyroscope-mounted "pancake" camera designed by Carl Akeley for outdoor action shots...
(uncredited).
The film starred Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
as Liszt, Capucine
Capucine
Capucine was a French actress and fashion model best known for her comedic roles in The Pink Panther and What's New Pussycat? . She appeared in 36 films and 17 television productions between 1948 and 1990...
as Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein
Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein
Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein was a Polish noblewoman who pursued a 40-year liaison/relationship with Franz Liszt. She was also an amateur journalist and essayist and it is conjectured that she did much of the actual writing of several of Liszt's publications, especially his Life of Chopin...
, and Geneviève Page
Geneviève Page
Geneviève Page is a leading French actress with a film career spanning fifty years. She is the daughter of Jacques Paul Bonjean , a well known French art-collector.-Career:...
as Marie d'Agoult
Marie d'Agoult
Marie Catherine Sophie de Flavigny, Vicomtesse de Flavigny , was a French author, known also by her married name and title, Marie, Comtesse d'Agoult, and by her pen name, Daniel Stern....
, with Patricia Morison
Patricia Morison
Patricia Morison is an American stage and motion picture actress and mezzo-soprano singer . She made her feature film debut in 1939 after several years on the stage. During her time as a screen actress she was lauded for her patrician beauty, with her blue eyes and extremely long, dark hair among...
as George Sand
George Sand
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...
, Alexander Davion as Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, Lyndon Brook
Lyndon Brook
Lyndon Brook was a British actor, on film and television.Born in York, Brook came from an established acting family. His father, Clive Brook, had been a star of the silent movies and had moved to Hollywood to play quintessential Englishmen in a host of films...
as Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, Albert Rueprecht as Prince Felix Lichnowsky
Felix Lichnowsky
Felix Lichnowsky, fully Felix Maria Vincenz Andreas Fürst von Lichnowsky, Graf von Werdenberg was a son of the historian Eduard Lichnowsky who had written a history of the Habsburg family....
, Erland Erlandsen as Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg was a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.- Descent and family background :...
, Ivan Desny
Ivan Desny
Ivan Nikolai Desnitskij was a Russian actor born in China who worked for most of his life in Germany.-Career:Desny was a film/movie actor. He acted in more than 150 films, most of them German...
, Martita Hunt
Martita Hunt
Martita Hunt was an English theatre and film actress.-Early life:Hunt was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 January 1900 to British parents Alfred and Marta Hunt...
, Lou Jacobi
Lou Jacobi
Louis Harold "Lou" Jacobi was a Canadian character actor.-Life and career:Jacobi was born Louis Harold Jacobovitch in Toronto, Ontario to Joseph and Fay Jacobivitch...
, and Marcel Dalio
Marcel Dalio
Marcel Dalio was a French character actor. He had major roles in two of Jean Renoir's most famous films, Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game.- Biography :...
.
Background
Columbia Pictures had plans to film The Franz Liszt Story back in 1952. Oscar SaulOscar Saul
Oscar Saul was an American writer. Saul wrote or collaborated on the screenplays for numerous movies from the 1940s through to the early 1980s...
was hired to write and produce with William Dieterle
William Dieterle
William Dieterle was a German actor and film director, who worked in Hollywood for much of his career. His best known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame...
directing. When this version failed to materialize the studio announced in 1955 that Gottfried Reinhardt had been commissioned to write a new screenplay. Finally in 1958, veteran producer William Goetz took over the project with Oscar Millard as his screenwriter. Charles Vidor, who had previously directed A Song to Remember
A Song to Remember
A Song to Remember is a 1945 Columbia Pictures biographical film which tells a fictionalised life story of Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin...
(1945), a biopic of Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, was assigned to direct.
As nearly forty musical selections would be heard in the film, Morris Stoloff
Morris Stoloff
Morris Stoloff was a musical composer.Stoloff worked as a music director at Columbia Pictures from 1936 to 1962...
, head of Columbia's music department, began immediate work on the soundtrack. After selecting the pieces to be played, he engaged Jorge Bolet
Jorge Bolet
Jorge Bolet was a Cuban-born but mostly American-resident pianist and teacher.-Life:Bolet was born in Havana, and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he himself taught from 1939 to 1942...
, the Roger Wagner Chorale and the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...
to perform the score. The recording of the music was completed prior to the start of production so that Bogarde could learn the finger movements necessary to make him appear to be playing the piano realistically in the film. Musical advisor Victor Aller
Victor Aller
Victor Aller was an American pianist.He had a successful career behind the scenes in the film industry, and he taught piano in Hollywood, where his students sometimes included actors preparing to depict musicians on screen, such as Dirk Bogarde and Cornel Wilde...
spent three weeks rehearsing Bogarde in proper piano technique.
Academy Awards
The film won the Best Music scoreAcademy Award for Original Music Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
Academy Award for Morris Stoloff and Harry Sukman and the Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
for Best Motion Picture (Musical).
External links
- Article on the difficult history of the production (from the Turner Classic MoviesTurner Classic MoviesTurner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
website)