THE GREAT VICTOR HERBERT (1939)

A young understudy goes on in the lead role in an operetta written and conducted by the famous Victor Herbert. She's in good voice, but seems at sea onstage until she sees someone in the audience who calms her down. We then flash back several years to see small town girl Louise Hall (Mary Martin) in New York City, sending a letter to her hometown boyfriend to say she's giving up on forging a singing career in New York City. But that afternoon, she gets tangled up with a mass of people in the streets who are serenading Victor Herbert (Walter Connolly) on his birthday. John Ramsey (Allan Jones), a lead singer in Herbert's shows, is impressed, both with her voice and her looks, and takes her into Herbert's home for an unofficial audition. Dick (Lee Bowman), the hometown boyfriend working on building a practice as a pediatrician, comes to the big city to bring her home, but by now, Louise is on her way to a successful musical career, and also being actively romanced by John, which makes his former gal Marie jealous. John's manager Barney (Jerome Cowan) watches things play out with a jaundiced eye; when John says he intends to marry Louise, Barney warns him that getting married might cost him his female fans (just as the Beatles were warned in the 1960s). Sure enough, as her career rises, his falls and their marriage suffers until they finally separate. As we return to the beginning of the movie, we realize that the terrified young singer is Louise and John's daughter Peggy. As understudy to her mother, she has taken over Louise's role and she overcomes her fears when she sees her estranged father in the theater, who joins her onstage.

As all reviewers of this film will tell you, and as you might figure out from my summary, this is not, despite its title, a biopic about Victor Herbert who wrote operas, operettas, and musical plays, perhaps best known now for his shows Babes in Toyland and Naughty Marietta. This film is stuffed with Herbert songs like "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life" and "Toyland," but Herbert himself is a distinctly minor character. This is actually a Gilded Age 'Star is Born' story whose main appeal now would be that it features a rare appearance by Broadway star Mary Martin (Peter Pan, South Pacific, The Sound of Music). Martin's film career never really took off, perhaps because it was difficult for her to find a niche on the Hollywood treadmill (to mix metaphors, I suppose). In some of her films, she was basically presented as a novelty act (see her rendition of "Hit the Road to Dreamland," a highlight of STAR SPANGLED RHYTHM) but when playing characters, she seemed a bit stiff and, frankly, sexless. She's fine here in her first movie, but she lacks star charisma—and her leading man Allan Jones isn't much more winning in the personality department. Walter Connelly is colorless as Herbert who pops in and out just enough for us to remember that he is a character. The standouts are Lee Bowman as the jilted boyfriend (who also pops in and out of the narrative) and Susanna Foster in the small role of Peggy. Jerome Cowan is fine in the mostly thankless role of the manager. This seems to have vanished from the legit world of home entertainment (no VHS or DVD releases that I could track down) but a decent print is available on YouTube, recommended only if you're already a Mary Martin fan. Pictured are Connelly, Martin and Jones. [YouTube]