Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Organnall Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

blanche-2 Thanks to a lovely cast and good direction by John Cromwell, "Night Song," pure hokum from 1947, manages to hold one's interest and be an entertaining film. It's the story of Dan (Dana Andrews), a composer who was blinded after the war and has now given up on life. He plays with his friend's (Hoagy Carmichael) group, and one night, a socialite (Merle Oberon) hears Dan play one of his own compositions and wants to talk with him. She discovers that he's a bitter, unhappy man. She wants to help, so she, too, pretends she's blind and meets him on the beach. She asks him to help her with her piano-playing and urges him to write.There is some wonderful music in this film, played by Artur Rubinstein, and Eugene Ormandy conducts the orchestra. The "Piano Concerto in C Minor" is actually composed by Leith Stevens, and it's quite good. Carmichael shines, singing "Who Killed 'Er" and "One for My Baby." Ethel Barrymore provides fine support as the sarcastic Miss Willey. It's an unusual role for her. Normally, she's a dowager without much sense of humor. Here, she still comes off like a dowager, but her wisecracks are effective nevertheless.There are some major holes in this film - I find Merle Oberon's speaking voice and accent very unique, and I don't know why Dan didn't recognize it immediately when she is introduced as her real self. I also didn't totally buy Dan's reactions at the end; I would have expected him to become quite angry.Still, there's something about "Night Song" that you can't help liking. If you're a fan of Merle Oberon's and/or Dana Andrews, don't miss it. Lucky for me, I love Hoagy Carmichael as well.

Neil Doyle If there's one thing to be said for NIGHT SONG, it's that at least it does put the spotlight on some nice classical music. But you have to wonder what they were thinking when they dreamed up a story that has blind pianist DANA ANDREWS being wooed by a woman (MERLE OBERON) who, in order to get close to him, pretends that she is blind too. Then, when he gets his sight back (thanks to a successful operation the wealthy woman sponsors), he sees her for the first time but feels guilty about the "other woman" whom he met when he was without sight. Well, with a plot like that, you know there's going to be an inevitable happy ending somehow--or is there? If that sounds like a silly description of the plot, it is. But that's the story we're supposed to swallow if we want to get any enjoyment out of the whole thing.MERLE OBERON looks lovely (but hardly changes her expression when she's supposed to be wildly in love with Andrews), and DANA ANDREWS looks a little uncomfortable feigning blindness. HOAGY CARMICHEL is a welcome presence as the owner of the joint where Oberon catches Andrews playing piano, and ETHEL BARRYMORE gives another one of her arch performances as Oberon's knowing aunt.John Cromwell directs it in leisurely fashion but it all adds up to an improbable tale with both stars looking a bit uncomfortable in what can only be termed an "unbelievable" tale. The concert music supplied by Leith Stevens is underwhelming even given its symphonic treatment.

bkoganbing Merle Oberson, rich San Francisco socialite, goes out for a nightcap at a jazz joint after a classical concert and flips over pianist Dana Andrews in Hoagy Carmichael's combo. Being a rich gal, she usually gets what she wants, but Andrews gives her the air. He's blind so the beautiful Ms. Oberson's charms don't impress him a mite.She talks it over with Carmichael and our boy Dana is a musical genius, but the blindness has left him bitter. So in order to help him find his muse, she pretends she's blind.Now if that don't sound like the silliest romantic plot you ever heard, you haven't seen too many old Hollywood classics. Andrews and Oberon looked downright embarrassed as did Ethel Barrymore playing Oberon's aunt.But the film has the saving grace of the abundantly talented Hoagy Carmichael. The highlight of the film is him singing and playing his song, Who Killed the Black Widow. Now that was muse well worth finding.

bmacv Unabashedly sentimental and a little silly (and all the more winning for it), John Cromwell's Night Song is about love, music and blindness. After a night at the San Francisco Symphony, Merle Oberon goes slumming with her high-hat companions to a joint called Chez Mamie. Promptly she falls for the blind piano player, Dana Andrews, who hews to the unbreakable Hollywood code of the vital male with a disability: he takes it out on everybody around him, including her.With the help of his band-mate and companion Hoagy Carmichael, she comes up with the sort of plan that would better be left to Lucy Ricardo - she pretends to be blind, too! And not only blind but living on slender means, so of course the proud Andrews comes to reciprocate her love. Meanwhile, she uses her secret wealth to fund a composition prize, which goes to Andrews for the piano concerto he's been bitterly working on. He wins, and with the money flies to New York not only to have his sight restored but to hear his work played by Artur Rubinstein under Eugene Ormandy's baton (both appear as themselves; the concerto, alas, by Leith Stevens, dispels no memories of Brahms' 2nd).In New York, the newly sighted Andrews meets up with Oberon - not as the poor blind girl but as his society benefactress (he's never seen her, remember, but you'd think he'd remember her voice - he is, after all, a musician). He falls in love with her, too, or again, or something, but then starts to think that he's a heel for throwing over the woman he left in San Francisco....Night Song is one of those late-40s/early-50s movies that takes classical music seriously, and hurray for that. It also features that wise old crone Ethel Barrymore as Oberon's aunt, all knowing smirks and wry aphorisms (it's exactly the performance she gave in A Portrait of Jennie that same year). Best of all is Lucien Ballard's inspired photography: in the digs that Andrews and Carmichael share, he overlays a shadowy scrim from the tracery in the lace curtains and the gingerbread that festoons the archways. All in all, Night Song is a bittersweet romance of that potent post-war vintage; it's intoxicating, and puts your good judgement quite to sleep.