Cinema: The New Pictures, Apr. 5, 1954

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A spoiled rich witch (Elizabeth Taylor) loves a young European musical genius (Vittorio Gassman). Proof of Gassman's genius: a head of hair proportionately longer than that of less talented musicians. Elizabeth moves him into her apartment, but she keeps getting in his hair when he wants to practice, and pretty soon he walks out. On the rebound, she marries an American piano student (John Ericson) whose childishness, interpreted by the script as glowing Americanism, illuminates dark old Europe about as effectively as a ten-watt bulb.

The bright young man permits his wife to support him, but has to pay her so much attention in return that he is driven from keyboard to bar. In the end, of course. Actress Taylor sees the error of her ways and builds up the husband she has torn down, just in time for a gigantic Rachmaninoff rag at the finale.

The picture's musical score of popular classics is interpreted with spirit on the sound track by Pianist Claudio Arrau and Violinist Michael Rabin. There are also some Alps in the background, Technicolor and plenty of overdecorated interiors. Elizabeth Taylor wears beautiful clothes, and Vittorio Gassman, when he plays the fiddle in a ski suit, is the most dashing thing of the kind since the lovesick violinist in the perfume ad.