When Columbia Had Dizzy Fingers

The Eddy Duchin Story (1956) A Crowd-Pleaser Still

Winchell Warns Chicago: Bring Tissue!

A tip to those spreading gospel of old movies: Try The Eddy Duchin Story. I've run it to groups and it clicks every time. Not all of classics do that. In fact, many won't, and never mind your own enthusiasm for them. I've tried to figure what's foolproof about Duchin. Maybe the music, or the heartthrob (very sad at times, but no bummer aftertaste). There's gloss too, like 40's romance re-cooked for a hi-fi 50's. Color, Cinemascope, and Manhattan locations turn back the clock like few vintage others (eighteen NYC sites utilized, including the Waldorf Astoria's Starlight Roof). This was lushest valentine so far posted to Gotham on a wide screen, as unlike 20th Fox with their second units sent for How To Marry A Millionaire and Woman's World, Columbia took principals to streets and parks. You can feel rain fall on Ty Power and Kim Novak under a dye-transfer umbrella (shot Eastman, but prints by Technicolor). Product warning, however: The Eddy Duchin Story must be seen wide, and preferably HD. Twilight Time has a Blu-Ray where picture gleams and sound dances off walls. Get that and give guests unexpected pleasure on your next antique pic night.

Kim Novak is the survivor cast member (there's also Rex Thompson --- what became of him?) and makes frequent landing at classic fests, but always with Vertigo, which is odd, because crowds would enjoy The Eddy Duchin Story a lot more. Vertigo continues to be respected, but is there pleasure in watching for a general audience? Hitchcock scholars have nulled what fun it had by dissecting the thing to parsley, with coup de grace of selection as All-Time #1 (how intimidating is that?). The Eddy Duchin Story would be ideal for a next TCM Festival. Or even better on their cruise. Everyone could get misty, cry outright, or hook up with others unattached on the boat. Part of why The Eddy Duchin Story works is gatekeepers not having found it, thus no academic burden and pollute that implies. I quote what one civilian viewer said after a Greenbriar screening: If all old movies are good as this, I should watch more of them.

Rediscovery is helped by digital rescue. For years, The Eddy Duchin Story looked rotten on TV crop/scan cycle. Then a laser disc parted curtains. DVD and now Blu-Ray did the rest. I agree that most bio-pics are hoke, or packs of lies, but somehow this one is different. To start, it stays with at least surface of fact (son Peter Duchin reveals fallacies in his book, but they're not severe, at least not in comparison with other music-men recounts). To casting, Tyrone Power is too old to be young Eddy, but ideal for a second half's mature Duchin. Since the pic covers a whole career, we can't have it both ways. This has to be Ty's most appealing late performance. He's earnest, dreamy in that way that brought fame since the 30's, and oh, what he does with those keys. Little of piano stuff is faked beyond Carmen Cavallaro supplying the actual track, Duchin's device being an essential same as when Al Jolson put voice to Larry Parks performance for The Jolson Story. So it's Tyrone Power's hands we see, the result, said publicity, of the actor training over three months of seven hours per day at the keyboard (would this not make at least a competent pianist of anyone?). There's a great gotcha moment where the camera lingers close on fingers, us thinking it's Cavallaro doubling, then the pull-back, and ... Tyrone Power. I'll bet that earned applause in a lot of first-run situations.

Query put to a 1956 public: Why Aren't There More Movies Like This? Columbia chief Harry Cohn signed a handout (above left) to launch a bulls-eye campaign rightly posing The Eddy Duchin Story as an old-fashioned Movie movie in best and most popular sense. Traditional ways of song were under siege from arriving storm of rock and roll --- might The Eddy Duchin Story push back that wave? You didn't have to be so old, after all, to remember Eddy Duchin (who died in 1951, was active almost to the end). How big a hit was The Eddy Duchin Story? Deservedly massive. Exhibs fairly fell down and wept (along with patronage) over a show that for once yanked customers away from their TV's. Check showman comments in '56 trades and feel the love. The Eddy Duchin Story took five million in domestic rentals, walloping every thing Columbia had that year except Picnic. It was like second coming of The Jolson Story. Cavallaro did a soundtrack LP. It differs from arrangements in the film which include George Duning scoring, but essential tunes are there, and a 2008 double-CD has the original Decca album plus a Duchin tribute follow-up Cavallaro got out a following year. There are experts who decry Cavallaro's approximation of Eddy Duchin, but as I don't fall into authority class where it comes to vintage bands (though certainly an enthusiast), I'll stand back of further comment. 'Nuff said that I listen to the CD's and enjoy them.

Romance Push to Drive-Ins

Columbia threw the declining radio medium a lifeline with The Eddy Duchin Story. Showmen and ad/pub staffers throughout a 50's industry had eased off airwaves in favor of quick-emerging television as promotion adjunct, the tube having proved itself a better bet for getting movie word out. Free listening wanted back in the sales game, so went all out on behalf of The Eddy Duchin Story, theirs an opportunity to prove that radio could still get results. CBS with its 206 affiliates bedded down with Columbia to feature Duchin on all of programming where tunes could wedge in. Even daily soaps worked ED tunes as background. The idea was to crest awareness and interest in Duchin well before The Eddy Duchin Story came to towns, further tie-in with record companies (six participating) making sure there'd be no shortage of "tribute" albums for the departed band-man in addition to Cavallaro discs. Scent of cash from two-years earlier The Glenn Miller Story was still in the air, that one having spun gold off oldies and demonstrated that even youth could be lured by sounds their parents liked.

Eddy Duchin and Orchestra Make a 1938 Theatre Appearance

Eddy Duchin had been gone five years when The Eddy Duchin Story came out. He was known as a "society" bandleader of "sweet," as opposed to swing, sounds, and reached a wide audience thanks to radio he commanded from the 30's, plus theatre appearances where his band preceded first-run movies. Duchin had looks plus sophistication and moneyed connections. He was, in fact, like Tyrone Power in many respects. There's a fun trailer for The Eddy Duchin Story hosted by Power where he speaks of having been a "close personal friend" of Duchin's. In addition, Eddy had once-upon-time taught piano to the film's director, George Sidney, and producer Jerry Wald (who still hasn't gotten due for many excellent pics he guided) was a Duchin booster from early days in New York, where Wald got his scribe start. There's illuminating glimpse of Eddy in a WB short from 1933 as part of a six-disc Big Band, Jazz, and Swing DVD set from Warner Archives. Duchin's also sighted in a couple or three features, none of which appear to be available, so this Vitaphone one-reeler may be an only opportunity to measure the real thing against Tyrone Power's impersonation, latter so imbedded as to render Duchin himself invisible.