Song of Norway (1970)

Director:

Andrew L. Stone

Writers:

Homer Curran (play)
Milton Lazarus (musical play)

Release Date:

4 November 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Musical | Romance

Tagline:

A song for the heart to sing...for the world to love!

Plot Keywords:

Composer | Based On Play | Independent Film

Cast

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

Runtime:

138 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (35 mm prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (Westrex Recording System) (70 mm prints)

Certification:

UK:U | Iceland:L | Finland:S | Norway:7 | USA:G

Company:

ABC Pictures

Trivia:

A screen adaptation by Universal, to be produced in Technicolor by Sam Spiegel (then known as S.P. Eagle), and to star Deanna Durbin, was set to begin filming in January 1948. Because of a projected high budget, the movie was canceled in August 1947.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Strauss and Vienna: On Location: The Great Waltz (1972)

Well, compared to what? ;-)

I saw this as a little kid taking piano lessons and loving Grieg's music. (That was in San Francisco - maybe I saw it at the same theater, the Paramount, as one of our earlier commenters?) All of 10 years old, I enjoyed it thoroughly. I suppose I wasn't a great judge of acting at that point, or of cinema in general (it was probably the third or fourth theatrical film I'd seen in my life at that point). So it was basically the music, voices, and scenery I was chewing on. I hadn't even heard the name "Carol Brady" then.

Haven't seen the film since, but I just wonder ... terrible compared to what? The soundtrack (a few cuts I have on a Grieg compilation) is miles better than the nursery-rhymes in Sound of Music, and for the most part the transliterated lyrics aren't a travesty. Florence Henderson doesn't make me gag any more than Julie Andrews or any other too-clean-and-scrubbed actor in the business. And what's wrong with casting an actual Norwegian as Grieg instead of ... I dunno, from the same era ... George Peppard? The movie even had a nice animated sequence for the kids.

Song of Norway was unlucky enough to arrive at the absolute tail end of the road-show-spectacular era of movie musicals, and I'm sure a lot of critics just had indigestion by that point, following Paint Your Wagon (with a singing, dancing Clint Eastwood!), Camelot (a singing, non-dancing Richard Harris!), The Happiest Millionaire (a singing, dancing Fred MacMurray!), and Darling Lili (Dame Julie's nadir). So what's so much worse about Song of Norway?

Got something against Scandinavian composers?!