Song of Norway (film)

Song of Norway begins with the young composer Edvard Grieg struggling to get his music noticed by other musicians or music producers in either Norway or Denmark. Grieg wants to write great lyrical music that represents his country. He gradually promotes his music with the help of composer and friend Rikard Nordraak, and cousin/wife/singer Nina Willemsun Grieg. During these early years (1860's), Norway was not especially looking for a composer of nationalist music based on Norwegian lyric songs. Other composers including Smetana, Dvorak and Liszt were beginning to develop a rich tradition of romantic music using the folk tunes of their homelands.^[3] In the film, Grieg complains about the lack of local interest in similar music for Norway. An old flame (the wealthy Therese Berg) helps subsidize a series of concerts for Grieg. He then applies for a travel grant, and his wife Nina befriends a local pianist (Mr. Krogstad) who then writes a letter to Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt on Grieg's behalf. Grieg receives the grant, and leaves for Rome, while Nina remains in Norway. In Rome Grieg meets Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and Franz Liszt. He holds numerous concerts and debuts his works. At this time Grieg also composes his famous piano concerto in A minor. Ibsen eventually asks Grieg to write the music for his play Peer Gynt. The film ends when Grieg returns home to Nina in Norway to continue his career. Of interest, the film correctly notes that Grieg's friend Rikard Nordraak, who dies while Grieg is away in Rome, composed the Norwegian national anthem.^[4]

 

• Toralv Maurstad as Edvard Grieg
• Florence Henderson as Nina Grieg
• Christina Schollin as Therese Berg
• Frank Porretta as Rikard Nordraak
• Oskar Homolka as Engstrand
• Robert Morley as Berg
• Edward G. Robinson as Krogstad
• Harry Secombe as Bioernstjerne Bjoernson
• Elizabeth Larner as Mrs. Bjoernson
• Frederick Jaeger as Henrik Ibsen
• Henry Gilbert as Franz Liszt
• Richard Wordsworth as Hans Christian Andersen
• Bernard Archard as George Nordraak

Earl St John announced he would make the film in 1950.^[5]

Song of Norway had its premiere on November 4, 1970 at the Cinerama Theatre in New York and in Oslo.^[6][7]

Song of Norway was conceived in the wake of successes like My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music, two films which had suggested to studios that a revival of full-scale musical films was in demand. The operetta from which the music was derived had run for over 1,000 performances on Broadway and in the West End.

However, the film version was a critical and commercial disaster. Filmgoers' appetites for a musical revival had been completely misjudged, and it ultimately was to join other box-office failures of the same period, such as Darling Lili, Mame, Paint Your Wagon, and Lost Horizon.^[8] Initially, box office prospects seemed promising with advance sales of $225,000 in New York and grossing $53,000 in its opening week from two theatres in New York and Toronto.^[9][10] In Britain, it was the most popular "reserved ticket" film of 1971.^[11] But it only went on to earn rentals of $4.4 million in the United States and Canada and $3.5 million in other countries, recording an overall loss of $1,075,000.^[1]

Critics were virtually unanimously negative on its release, observing its imitation of The Sound of Music and its generally poor production despite obvious expense. In The New Yorker, Pauline Kael wrote: "The movie is of an unbelievable badness; it brings back clichés you didn’t know you knew - they’re practically from the unconscious of moviegoers."^[12] Vincent Canby in The New York Times wrote that the film "is no ordinary movie kitsch, but a display to turn Guy Lombardo livid with envy," adding that "the film, conceived as a living postcard, is so full of waterfalls, blossoms, lambs, glaciers, folk dancers, mountains, children, suns, fjords and churches, that it raises kitsch to the status of a kind of art, not without its own peculiar integrity and crazy fascination."^[13][14][15] Kathleen Carroll of the New York Daily News gave it two stars out of four, writing that "Edvard Grieg may well have had his struggles as a young composer but he'd have to sit through the movie based on his life to know real depression. For The Song of Norway, at the Cinerama, is one big sour note. What has been done to the once charming operetta (it was first performed on Broadway in 1944) is almost too terrible to describe and it is particularly infuriating to those of us who still believe in the preservation of movie musicals."^[16] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film half of one star out of four writing: "The fjords aren't exactly alive with the sound of Grieg thanks to a disastrous screenplay by Andrew Stone who finds it more convenient to photograph a mountain than to write intelligent dialog."^[17] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called the film "inoffensive but unsatisfying" and compared it unfavorably to The Sound of Music, which "had a strong narrative line and generated a good deal of suspense. It's not Grieg's fault he wasn't chased by Nazis, of course, but such trials as there were in his life seem either lacklustre or inappropriate to a family musical."^[18] Critics also cited the uninspired cinematography, clumsy editing and a ham-fisted insertion of cartoon trolls (supervised by former Disney animator Jack Kinney). These flaws seemed only amplified by their presentation in Super-Panavision and Cinerama. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that the film had "next to no plot" and "beautiful scenery or not, people are going to lose interest as slowly but surely as they do when watching the neighbors' slides of their trip to Europe."^[19]

Critics' views were echoed by cast members. Florence Henderson said Andrew Stone "approached scenes quite literally and without a lot of imagination".^[20] Harry Secombe called it a film "you could take the kids to see... and leave them there."^[21]

In the music video for David Bowie's 2013 song "Where Are We Now?", Bowie is seen wearing a shirt referencing the film, which in 1969 his then-girlfriend, Hermione Farthingale, had appeared in, leaving him in order to do so.^[22]

• List of American films of 1970

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Song of Norway (film).

• Song of Norway at IMDb
• Song of Norway at the TCM Movie Database
• Song of Norway at Rotten Tomatoes