Harmony Lane

This is a biography on the famous songwriter, Stephen Foster. If you don't know who that is, he's the guy responsible for Old Folks At Home, I Dream Of Jeannie and Swanee River among other compositions. This biography doesn't really tell you much in terms of gossip about the guy (he had a failed marriage that turned him to drink!) and the acting here is just OK, with Douglass Montgomery's hideous age makeup overpowering his performance here. I guess the main focus is the music. I guess that's not bad, but mind you, we're talking the later 1800's hit parade here. So like we're talking about like 'Beautiful Dreamer" territory here. One thing though, I just love how the main music is strains of 'Old Folks At Home'. I mean, you've never heard the song used as a background to a man under a drink's spell!

I got my hands on a copy of Harmony Lane because it was Hattie McDaniel week on Hot Toasty Rag, but even though she was in the movie for about ten seconds, I'm still glad I watched it. Douglass Montgomery, the star and portrayer of Stephen Foster, impressed me! I'd only previously seen him as Laurie in my favorite version of Little Women, but I didn't like his performance. He must have taken the two years to take some acting lessons, because he was completely capable handling the lead role and making us believe he was the legendary composer. He was captivated by music, often hearing a tune in his head and needing to plunk it out on the nearest piano no matter what the situation; he loved and lost; and he suffered and died of a broken heart.

I thought this was going to be a rinky-dink, low-budget movie I'd want to turn off, but I enjoyed it very much. I got to hear both Montgomery and William Frawley sing, and I learned the heartache behind Stephen Foster's life. It was very sad to see him sell the rights to his songs for hardly any money, but I already knew that piece of trivia before watching the movie, so I was prepared. If you like "Beautiful Dreamer" or "Camptown Races", check out this well-acted biopic.

Stephen Foster songs are no longer part of the Great American Songbook, but for more than a century they were. Movies like this were inevitable. What was less inevitable that it would come from a Poverty Row Producer like Mascot and be so good.

Certainly director Joseph Santley does a good job. He is one of the many directors who came into the movies, turned out good work, and rarely rose out of the Bs. Here he offers good performances and set-piece camera set-ups that are quite lovely. While none of the actors are great. they are certainly up to the rigors of their roles, and it is a bizarre pleasure to see William Frawley playing Edwin Christy.... and playing him as William Frawley.

In this modern age we sneer at artists like Foster because they accepted the standards of their era, instead of the superior standards of our era. Even with that proviso, and understanding that Foster's commercially successful music didn't make him a wealthy man, because he would typically sell a song for $30, and glad to get it, because copyright enforcement was virtually non-existent.

So why was his music so popular that when I was taught the piano as a child, several of his songs were still standards? Their simplicity was one reason. The tune could be picked out with a single finger. However, their original popularity was due to the same sort of thing that made Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL and Sha-Na-Na's doo-wop so popular: nostalgia. In the tumult of the 1850s, with the industrialization of the North, many of the new urban population yearned for a simpler, rustic existence, and Foster's songs gave it to them, three minutes at a time.

Very moving account of American composer Stephen Foster's life and how he came to write his memorable and heartfelt songs. Lots of music included. It's a dated and idealized presentation in some ways but a great way to learn about this talented man. Also learned something about once-popular minstrel shows, where white men painted their faces black and sang and danced in an imitation of slaves - but not as well as they did it! Learned that Stephen Foster found early musical inspiration in a black church, as did Elvis Presley a century later.

The life story of songwriter, Stephen Foster, whose songs have now fallen largely into disrepute. Surprisingly good biopic from Poverty Row outfit Mascot, anchored by a strong performance from Montgomery who walks the tightrope between naïve, idealistic youth and embittered, disillusioned drunk without once losing his footing. Poignant and moving if you can get past our modern-day aversion to racial stereotyping. And there must be many, many men would have permitted the lovely Adrienne Ames to destroy them...