Cinema: The New Pictures: Dec. 18, 1939

The Great Victor Herbert (Paramount) opens with a stern view of the bulgy, bobbing little maestro tripping down the centre aisle of a theatre to conduct a synthetic Victor Herbert operetta. When he turns to make his bow, the audience sees that he is just able, amiable Walter Connolly dressed up to look like the composer. But few people who go to see The Great Victor Herbert will give a tenor's whoop what Victor Herbert looked like. They will want to (and will) hear Allan Jones and Mary Martin sing Victor Herbert's lilting tunes with freshness and charm.

They sing plenty: lyric bits from such Herbert operettas as Naughty Marietta, Mile Modiste, Princess Pat; Herbertian fragments on streets, in a carriage, at dinner table, in a Fifth Avenue mansion shaded by a big eucalyptus tree. They run through eight songs in a brief bicycle ride among the mountains of Central Park. Since Paramount owns the rights to individual songs only, producers had to create phony scenes to give the effect of Herbert operettas. Victor Herbert devotees may be surprised, too, to hear words sung to such instrumental pieces as Al Fresco, Punchinello, Yesterthoughts.

The story, in which Victor Herbert plays fifth fiddle, concerns the unhappy marriage of a conceited tenor (Allan Jones) and his soprano protegee Louise (Mary Martin). Through years of professional jealousy, both are sustained and supported by singing Victor Herbert's music. Louise's voice gives out, her singing daughter (14-year-old Susanna Foster) takes over very creditably, despite a tendency to tail off in a musine squeak on the top notes (B flat above high C).

The Great Victor Herbert is distinguished for providing Allan Jones the first film part worthy of his silken tenor. It also brings to the screen for the first time Mary Martin, glamorous Texas strip teaser, whose song, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, was the hit of the 1938 Broadway musical season. A little skinny on the stage, Miss Martin's figure is enhanced by the tendency of the camera to fill out curves.