Humoresque (1946) - film review

A moment of personal tragedy prompts concert violinist Paul Boray to re-evaluate his life.  He recalls happier times when, as a small boy, his mother gave him a violin for his birthday.  After years of dedicated study, Paul becomes an accomplished violinist, but he finds it impossible to find work so he can pay his way.   One day, his pianist friend Sid Jeffers takes him along to a party hosted by the wealthy socialite Helen Wright.  The latter is trapped in a loveless marriage with an older man and finds the headstrong young violin player a tempting proposition.  She decides to act as Paul’s patron, financing his debut concert and providing him with a manager.  Through Helen’s money and contacts, Paul soon becomes an established musician, and he shows his gratitude in just the way Helen hoped he might.  But just when Helen thinks she has won her man, she realises that she will never be able to compete with his one true love, his music...

With knockout performances from two of Hollywood’s finest, Joan Crawford and John Garfield, Humoresque is easily one of Warner Brothers’ classier forays into weepy melodrama territory.   The film’s two star performers are at their hard-bitten best and complement one another superbly, Crawford’s predatory vamp well-matched against Garfield’s driven music maker.  In this clash of titanic egos, it isn’t initially apparent who will crack first, but once music from Bizet’s Carmen fills our ears we see at once who is intended to play the ill-fated Don José role, and it isn’t Garfield.

As great as Crawford and Garfield are, the real star of Humoresque is the music, which not only propels the narrative and adds texture and emotional depth to the drama but also serves as the third character in the eternal triangle.  Few films have used music so imaginatively or so effectively as this one for dramatic purposes.  Frank Waxman’s score, complemented by his arrangement of various well-known classical pieces, is what most gives the film its heart-wrenching intensity and sheer lyrical power.  Humoresque is a near-prefect fusion of musical composition and dramatic art, opera re-born as cinema.  

The one major technical challenge faced by the production team was how to convince an audience that John Garfield is a world class violist when in fact he had never held a violin in his life.  The virtuoso violinist Isaac Stern recorded the music played by Garfield’s character and acted as an advisor to director Jean Negulesco.   The close-up shots in which Garfield is apparently playing the violin were realised with Garfield standing with his hands held behind his back and two musicians beside him each lending a hand to play the instrument.  In the long shots, Garfield is substituted by a violinist double.  Careful editing and camerawork create the illusion that Garfield is another Yehudi Menuhin.

As you would expect in a prestige Hollywood production, Humoresque offers not only two great lead actors but also a superlative supporting cast.  Oscar Levant is a delight as Garfield’s wisecracking buddy, lightening the mood to prevent Humoresque from being totally humourless.  As Garfield’s compassionate mother, Ruth Nelson provides much of the film’s emotional stimulus, her character’s no nonsense decency making Crawford’s selfish man-eater appear all the more vile and pitiful.   

Jean Negulesco’s direction is understated but effective, relying on the performances, the music and Ernest Haller’s moody cinematography to tell the story and gently build the drama to its operatic climax.  The tense, tragic denouement shows Negulesco at his most inspired and compassionate.  Smart inter-cutting between two locations skilfully resolves the fate of the two lovers, the tragedy of the moment heightened by the aural backdrop of music from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.  Here we see Joan Crawford at her most devastating.  Once her character’s tough exterior has been shattered and trodden into the ground, we see her as she really is, a woman desperately in need of love but incapable of giving it.  Yes, even a Teflon-coated bitch can make you cry.

© Chris Alderton 2010

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