Moonlight Sonata

Brilliant and internationally famous, the Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski plays himself in this autobiographical story of plane crash survivors who become the guests of a Swedish baroness. Interwoven throughout this gentle tale are piano solos performed superbly by the elderly pianist in eerie black-and-white, four years before his death and two years before the Nazi invasion of his beloved homeland. --Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association, 2013

The main question hanging over this film is - how did it come to be

made? How did they ever persuade Paderewski to take part? He

speaks his lines very slowly, but with impressive dignity - he is

playing himself - and the overhead shots of his hands as he plays

the Beethoven, Chopin and Paderewski selections are marvellous. The other reason for seeing the film is the

performance by Dame Marie Tempest as the Swedish Countess,

into whose castle the people who have been in the plane crash

are invited. The script gives her virtually nothing to do, but she

makes an extraordinary impression and it's easy to imagine,

watching her timing, the beautiful gestures and the lovely

cadences of her voice (remember, she was a pupil of the great

singing teacher Manuel Garcia) what a sensational stage

performer she must have been. The story is sentimental, but everyone seems to enter into it with

great energy. The sets are designed by Laurence Irving (grandson

of Henry Irving) and they are large and handsome in a very 1930s

'modern' way.

The great Paderewski, the concert pianist who became Prime Minister of Poland, plays himself in a very strange film.

Some victims of a plane accident find themselves marooned in the house of a countess. All these people have problems with their lives, and it is like a 1930s soap opera. But the little stories are so cleverly put together that in each case there is only one solution to the problem: if only...if only...Paderewski would play the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata...then all problems will be solved, and everything will be all right.

The expectation rises as the film heads towards its close. And finally the wild-haired maestro sits down at the grand, and plays the first movement. And it just goes to show that good things really are worth waiting for. However lightweight we thought the film was to begin with, it is all swept away as we listen to the great man play. The performance is wonderful.

Anybody who loves good music must see this film.

Paderewski, at the time the greatest pianist in the world, was more than 75 when he made this fim, but he seems the most ageless of all. He plays with perfect control and concentration, not letting even a glance out of his performance before it's finished, and you can study his pianistic art in detail, as there are many close-ups of his recital showing his hands and how they work in extreme sensitivity and perfection. The film begins with his giving a concert, Chopin's great sixth polonaise and Franz Liszt's greatest rhapsody, and the Moonlight Sonata as an encore. In the audience there is a young couple with a child, and as the mother's attention constantly goes to the child and the ball she is playing with, you wonder what this will lead to. It's just the beginning of the story.

The story is a wonder in itself. Paderewski with some others in a plane on their way to Paris get stranded in Sweden (!) and have to leave the plane for repairs. They are lodged in a castle of nobility with only a few inhabitants, a grandmother and her granddaughter, but among the stranded passengers is also Eric Portman, and whenever he turns up, you know there will be mischief. The drama develops into some serious business, which ultimately is solved and saved by Paderewski. The final scene is without words, but the music and the scenery speaks for itself, as Ingrid descends the stairs, and you feel her quandary as painfully as she does herself.

This is totally different from all those concert films made in America with subplots of common people with no taste and plenty of musical ignorance mixed up with some oases of serious music; as here the style is genuine and kept at a high level all the way. Marie Tempest as the baroness takes the prize, though, and Paderewski makes an adorable character in his humble and continental courtesy as the most perfect of all old gentlemen. The music though crowns this exquisite excursion into the magic of music.

Performers of classical music were often to be seen in films of this era.Though,as in this film,their participation was limited by their acting ability.So Paderewski gets the first 20 minutes to himself,after which we get on with the trifle of the love story.Charles Farrell is the parachuted in American star for distribution purposes.Portman makes a dashing villain and Marie Tempest is a sympathetic grandmother Some really effective sets particularly the theatre at the beginning.