NR | 1 hr, 52 min | Musical, Comedy | 1946
One of my favorite things about classic movies is how they combined performers with very different backgrounds and talents to create unique casts and thus fascinating movies. Besides the actors themselves, musical styles were often just as eclectic, with scores of Golden Era musicals, including opera arias and instrumental classical music, alongside jazz tunes and original musical numbers. Somehow, it all came together to create entertaining, inventive films, which are so different from today’s movies.
For example, “Two Sisters from Boston” (1946) is a musical comedy set around the turn of the 20th century, which blends fictional opera, burlesque comedy, and classical singing. Its cast is a similarly mixed bag, with the classical soprano Kathryn Grayson and the girl next door popular singer June Allyson playing sisters. In supporting roles are former Metropolitan Opera star Lauritz Melchior and slapstick comedian Jimmy Durante; refined Englishman Peter Lawford plays the romantic lead.
A Sister Story
Stodgy political candidate Jonathan Chandler (Harry Hayden) is scandalized when the rumor spreads that his niece, Abigail (Grayson), has been singing and dancing in a honky-tonk theater in New York called The Golden Rooster. Her sister, Martha (Allyson), insists that Abigail has been pursuing an opera career, but her uncle decides to find out for himself. Abigail convinces her uncle, aunt (Isobel Elsom), and Martha that she was singing in an opera called, “The Golden Rooster.” They buy tickets to see her in the opera that night, so Abigail has to work quickly to get herself into the show. She gets some help from Spike Morello (Durante), her manager down at The Golden Rooster, who doesn’t want his star to go back to Boston.Using a little ingenuity and a lot of larceny, Spike gets Abigail into the opera chorus by telling several people that she is the “friend” of the opera director, Mr. Patterson (Thurston Hall). To ensure that her relatives see her in the show, Abigail jumps out of the chorus, maddening the leading tenor, Olaf Olstrom (Melchior). This is enough to convince her aunt and uncle, who decide to leave Martha in New York with her sister. However, a misunderstanding results from Spike’s little lie. Patterson’s son, the scholarly Lawrence (Lawford), believes that his father is having an affair with Abigail. He and Martha meet by chance and band together to persuade their loved ones to abandon their sin.
Musical Mayhem
Ironically, although this movie is about a girl who is trying to break into the opera world, there is little real opera music in it. There is one scene from Richard Wagner’s “Lohengrin,” but the other two opera sequences in the movie are fictitious. They feature classical instrumental music by Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn with vocal arrangements and English words supplied by the MGM music department. This was pretty standard practice in Hollywood’s opera-themed musicals of that time, since the stories could easily be crafted to fit the purposes of the movie’s plot. Plus, very few English operas existed at that time. Kathryn Grayson’s big coloratura aria, “When Romance Passes By,” is based on a waltz from “Coppelia,” a ballet by Léo Delibes.
One classical song which is featured in the score is “Preislied” from “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” by Wagner. Lauritz Melchior sings this famous tenor aria in a hilarious scene in a basement recording studio. The powerful Danish tenor faces the gramophone recording horn, as his accompanying string players run toward and away from the horn to achieve appropriate dynamics. Meanwhile, his dog, aptly named Tristan for the Longerin legend, recreates the famous RCA Victor logo when he hears “his master’s voice.”
This is one of only five films which this famous opera singer made during the later years of a thriving international opera career; this was the second film he made after making his movie debut at age of 55 in “Thrill of a Romance” the year before. Although he made many excellent recordings throughout his career, it’s amazing to watch his expressions and observe the physicality behind his powerful sound.
“Two Sisters from Boston” is full of great music, but it’s also a lot of fun. While Melchior provides the serious classical singing, alongside Grayson, Durante provides most of the laughs. If you’ve never seen this lovably street-smart Vaudeville comedian with a distinct New York accent and a famously prominent “schnozzola,” you’re missing out on one of the great performers. As Spike, he sings, dances, and clowns alongside Grayson, Allyson, and even Melchior with perfect timing, as well as being a caring pal to the sisters. There are many great moments in “Two Sisters from Boston;” you just have to see it for yourself.
