The Great Caruso

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This highly fictionalized, sentimental biog of the late, great Metropolitan Opera tenor, Enrico Caruso, handsomely mounted in Technicolor, has a lot of popular ingredients, including a boy-and-girl-vs-disapproving-parent romance, the draw of Caruso's rep, glamor of the Met, a host of surefire, familiar operatic arias, and the pull of Mario Lanza.

This highly fictionalized, sentimental biog of the late, great Metropolitan Opera tenor, Enrico Caruso, handsomely mounted in Technicolor, has a lot of popular ingredients, including a boy-and-girl-vs-disapproving-parent romance, the draw of Caruso’s rep, glamor of the Met, a host of surefire, familiar operatic arias, and the pull of Mario Lanza.

Otherwise, the film is a superficial pic, bearing little relationship to Caruso’s actual story, which was a much more dramatic one than emerges here. There are strong omissions and some falsifications.

Story is a casual recital of part of Caruso’s career, with a few, brief scenes of him as a young Neapolitan cafe singer, then his quick rise as tenor in Milan, London, and other European music capitals, and his triumphs at the NY Met. The film centers early on Caruso’s romance with Dorothy Benjamin, his difficulty with her father and their happy marriage. It shows him in some of his Met successes and touches briefly on his breakdown and death.

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Lanza is handsome, personable and has a brilliant voice. He’s a lyric tenor, like Caruso; has his stocky build, his Italianate quality and some of his flair. Dorothy Kirsten, who plays a Met soprano befriending Caruso, is a good actress as well as a gifted singer.

1951: Best Sound Recording.

Nominations: Best Color Costume Design, Scoring of a Musical Picture

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The Great Caruso

  • Production: M-G-M. Director Richard Thorpe; Producer Joe Pasternak, Jesse L. Lasky; Screenplay Sonya Levien, William Ludwig; Camera Joseph Ruttenberg; Editor Gene Ruggiero; Music Johnny Green (sup.); Art Director Cedric Gibbons, Gabriel Scognamillo
  • Crew: (Color) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1951. Running time: 109 MIN.
  • With: Mario Lanza Ann Blyth Dorothy Kirsten Jarmila Novotna Richard Hageman Carl Benton Reid

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