Song of the Flame (film)

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Song of the Flame (1930)
Directed by	Alan Crosland
Written by	Gordon Rigby based on the 1925 operetta by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto A. Harbach.
Starring	Alexander Gray Bernice Claire Alice Gentle Noah Beery
Music by	George Gershwin Harry Akst Jay Chernis Grant Clarke David Mendoza Herbert Stothart Edward Ward
Cinematography	Lee Garmes (Technicolor)
Editing by	Alexander Hall
Distributed by	First National Pictures: A Subsidiary of Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	May 25, 1930
Running time	96 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

Song of the Flame is a 1930 musical operetta film photographed entirely in Technicolor. It was the first color film to feature a widescreen sequence using a process called Vitascope (a Warner Brother's wide screen process). The film was nominated for an Oscar for "Best Sound Recording."

[edit] Film

The story of the movie is about a peasant-girl named Aniuta ( Bernice Claire ) who is known as "The Flame," the Joan of Arc of Russia, who leads a revolution in Russia. This peasant is in love with a Russian prince named Prince Volodya (played by Alexander Gray) and she saves his life by agreeing to sacrifice her virginity to an evil fellow-conspirtator Konstantin (played by Noah Beery). Alice Gentle, has the sinister rôle of Natasha.

The story, such as it is, runs from St. Petersburg to a small town where there is a fête. It happens at a time when The Flame is exhorting the populace to rebellion. As in most such narratives, the man who falls in love with this heroine is the Prince and the individual who would snare her away with the valuables he has pocketed for himself is the rascal Konstantin. Konstantin, however, as has been told, meets an inglorious end and the Prince becomes one of the masses to win the love of Aniuta, The Flame.

[edit] Music

Noah Beery was widely praised for his deep bass voice, which he first exhibited it this film in the song "One Little Drink." This song was satirized in a Bosko cartoon entitled: The Booze Hangs High (1930). Based on the success of this song, the Warner Bros. subsequently cast Beery in a number of musical films, most notably in Golden Dawn (1930). The public was so enthralled by his singing abilities that Brunswick Records hired Noah Beery to record songs from both of these films which were issued in their popular series.

[edit] Preservation

The film is believed to be lost. Only the soundtrack, which was recorded separately on Vitaphone disks, survives. The extant sound discs from this film reveal a very high quality Vitaphone sound - round, warm and clear with good sound effects and a quality reproduction of speaking and singing voices as well as orchestrations. It would seem it fully deserved its Oscar nomination for Best Sound. The score is a marvelously operatic one. All nine songs are preserved in the sound disc performances. There were four choruses as well, three of traditional Russian folk tunes and one drawn from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.