Song Without End (1960)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Charles Vidor

Writer:

Oscar Millard (writer)

Release Date:

14 October 1960 (Finland)

Genre:

Drama | Music

Tagline:

His Scandalous Affairs Shocked the World!

Plot Keywords:

Frederick Chopin | Composer | Classical Music | Frank Liszt | Pianist

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

Dirk Bogarde	...	Franz Liszt
Capucine	...	Princess Carolyne Wittgenstein
Geneviève Page	...	Countess Marie D'Agoult
Patricia Morison	...	Georges Sand
Ivan Desny	...	Prince Nicholas
Martita Hunt	...	Grand Duchess
Lou Jacobi	...	Potin
Albert Rueprecht	...	Prince Felix Lichnowsky
Marcel Dalio	...	Chelard
Lyndon Brook	...	Richard Wagner
Walter Rilla	...	Archbishop
Hans Unterkircher	...	Czar
Erland Erlandsen	...	Sigismond Thalberg (as E. Erlandsen)
Alexander Davion	...	Frederic Chopin (as Alex Davion)
Katherine Squire	...	Anna Liszt

Also Known As:

Crescendo

Runtime:

141 min | USA:130 min (TCM print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Pathécolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | 4-Track Stereo

Certification:

USA:Not Rated | Finland:S

Filming Locations:

Berndorf Theater, Vienna, Austria

Company:

William Goetz Productions

Trivia:

Charles Vidor had completed about 15 percent of the picture when he died on 4 June 1959.

Quotes:

Countess Marie: I met Franz at a musical party. I remember he played a ballade in A-flat major by Chopin. I thought I'd never seen anything as beautiful as Franz looked when he sat at the piano. I... I wanted to cry. He watched me as he played; Franz never fails to notice a pretty woman in his audience...
[...]

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Making of '...And God Spoke' (1993)

The film does injustice to Liszt who is portrayed both as a prima donna and a Lothario.

Ferencz Liszt was by most accounts a kind and pious man who shared his talents and privileges of his fame with his fans, students and fellow artists like Berlioz and Wagner. This film does him an injustice by portraying him as a prima donna and Lothario. Nevertheless, the producers must be commended for making it. It aroused my interest in classical music when I saw it at the age of 10.

I thrilled to the bombast and impossible fingerwork of Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. But the final piece Liszt (portrayed by Bogarde) played as he retreated to the monastery haunted me throughout my teenage years. Liebestraume No. 3 ("Dreams of Love") can either be a soothing balm or a cutting knife for the lovesick.

Bogarde, who obviously knew his onions about piano playing displayed the exact fingerwork on the proper fields of the keyboard and his body English was totally convincing. Well after all, he was not only an actor but a true artist - an accomplished writer and a painter.

Capuccine, touted as one of the most beautiful women at the time, portrayed the Princess of Witgenstein. But my heart fell for the jilted wife, the Belgian countess portrayed by Genevieve Page whom I found more,"simpatica."