Humoresque

Paul Boray is a violin student growing up poor in New York. He has the talent and no money. Helen Wright, wealthy and married, becomes his patron and opens his career. What forms between them is love and dependency at once, and as Paul rises Helen runs out of ground to stand on. Jean Negulesco directs. John Garfield plays Paul and Joan Crawford plays Helen. Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold wrote the screenplay from Fannie Hurst's novel. The technical problem was the violin. Garfield was not a musician and Negulesco refused to cut away from the hands. The solution: two real violinists were placed behind Garfield, one bowing from the left, the other fingering, with Garfield's own arms out of sight. On screen, three people play in one body. The violin on the soundtrack is Isaac Stern's. The ending is remembered separately. As Helen walks toward the sea, Wagner's Liebestod plays and the music becomes the narration; it counts among Crawford's best scenes of the period. Who it is for: viewers who like forties Hollywood melodrama, Crawford, and films that build classical music into their structure. Who it is not for: the emotional register is high and the dialogue is literary in places. Realism is not what this is.