walterm-1 I saw the movie once, when it first came out, while I was in the army, and enjoyed it greatly. I knew Romberg for his *Blossom Time*, a fictionalized life of Franz Schubert, a la the German *Dreimaederlhaus*. (There are some differences.)Early on in the movie,*Deep in My Heart*, Romberg acknowledged that his music was not *The Mikado* but that *The Mikado* in turn was not...something else. Does anyone here recall the scene and what he claimed The Mikado to rank behind? I recently caught the final moments of the movie on TV but the episode I'm asking about had occurred earlier. Any help w/ my question would be appreciated.

mark.waltz By 1954, a biography of operetta composer Sigmund Romberg seems a bit out of place just two years before Elvis Presley took the recording industry by storm. But Hollywood wasn't giving up on operettas, at least not yet, having just filmed Romberg's "The Desert Song" (for the 4th time, if you include "The Red Shadow, a 1934 short) and "The Student Prince", as well as Rudolph Friml's "Rose Marie". As a movie biography, "Deep in My Heart" is a lot of "and then I did", but it is completely charming. A glorious opening has the MGM chorus singing the title song after a brief orchestral medley of his songs, and don't be surprised if your spine doesn't tingle a bit when the first close-up on Jose Ferrer comes up.As other musical biographies always start, Sigmund Romberg is a hopeful composer who reluctantly writes jazzy tunes (the delightful "Leg of Mutton") to get his name bandied about by Broadway producers. They take his beautiful medley, "Softly as a Morning Sunrise", and turn it into a Folies Bergere type number for his first show, but Romberg insists that he won't be satisfied until he can have his operetta, "Maytime", produced. In the meantime, he writes for a few more reviews, but when "Maytime" is produced, he has an artistic and financial smash on his hands. The pairing of Jane Powell and Vic Damone singing "Will You Remember?" is glorious, which sets the tone for the on-stage numbers. It's ironic here that the best numbers are the ones for his operettas, "The Student Prince", "The Desert Song", and "New Moon". Jazzy numbers like "It", "I Love to Go Swimmin' With Women" are slightly disappointing, as if stating these types of songs didn't have his heart in them. In fact, "It", lively sung and danced by Ann Miller is a little offensive.As far as the storyline goes, the music drops out completely in the middle of the film as Romberg's romance with his future wife Lillian (Doe Averdon) erupts, but fortunately, it's not gone for long. Ferrer gives a hysterical performance while describing the plot and music of his newest show "Jazz-a-Doo" to Averdon and her uppity mother (Isobel Elsom) that is reminiscent of Danny Kaye's early work. Supporting Ferrer, along with his wife, are the lovely Merle Oberon as Romberg's lyricist and book writer Dorothy Donnelly and the amazing Helen Traubel as Anna Mueller, his life-long friend who has the voice of an angel, not to mention the heart of gold to go along with it. Traubel, who made few films, is a gifted comic and steals every scene she is in.For fans of "Funny Girl", there is a nice ironic scene of Walter Pidgeon playing J.J. Shubert in a scene with Paul Henreid as Florenz Ziegfeld. (It's too bad they couldn't get William Powell to play David Belasco or some other Broadway producer of that era.) "Mr. Magoo" and "Thurston Howell III" fans will instantly recognize Jim Backus in the role of one of Romberg's writing partners. Overall, "Deep in My Heart" is typical MGM gloss with only the outline of a story, but works tremendously because of the entertainment quotient it brings. It ranks up there with "Till the Clouds Roll By" and "Three Little Words", and outshines the fictitious Cole Porter story ("Night and Day") and the sanitized "Words and Music" (the Rodgers and Hart story).

joseph952001 Deep In My Heart was recently shown on Turner Classics and for some reason it was shown in a Letter-Box presentation. I remember when this film first came out and there were no widescreen movies at that time, but I do remember that when the widescreen process did appear, many of the old film were redone over in a widescreen process such as "The Wizard of Oz" and Disney's Fantasia which was preprocessed in Super-Scope with the advertisement "Fantasia Will Amazya!", even though Disney originally had planned to make Fantasia in a widescreen process it didn't happen because of World War II, but all it did in a Super-Scope presentation was to have it's fans run out of the theater screaming! So, I don't remember "Deep In My Heart" being released at that time in a Widescreen process, but maybe they did. This film ages like a fine bottle of wine. I really didn't like it then, but I do now, and I remember that the M.G.M. Soundtrack album was a very big seller at the time. So, let's not bring up the negative parts about the film. Instead, remember that no one knew that Jose Ferrer could sing and dance, and above all, he was an accomplished piano player as well. Yes! That was Ferrer playing the piano. And what about Helen Traubel. Well, anyone that didn't like her performance in the movie should be hung Softly As a Morning Sunrise! All her songs were perfection and her rendering of "Stout Hearted Men" was so effective that it's a wonder that everyone wasn't standing at attention during her singing of it. Sure, the movie has its flaws, but the overall effect is wonderful. I thought Jose Ferrar playing all those different parts when they were trying to write the show for Al Jolson was kinda dumb, but he did it so well. Tony Martin I've never really liked. He always sounded to me like a singer with a tight girdle trying to strangle him. Ann Miller? Well, there's something very obnoxious about Ann Miller. Probably because she was always given these parts of a girl with an abnormal appetite for the opposite sex, but her best role was playing Lois Lane in "Kiss Me Kate"; she was great! So, why aren't films like this appreciated today? Once again, this is another one of those wonderful films that you have to see on the large silver screen in a movie theater to really enjoy! Television only gives you some of the enjoyment of it. Again, I wish they would release these films nationwide in movie theaters so all the young people could see what all the drum beating is all about, but Deep In My Heart I know that When I Grow To Old To Dream, I'll Have This Film To Remember!

L. Denis Brown I missed this film when it first appeared, and only saw it quite by chance very recently on the TCM channel. I felt it was a rather unappreciated gem that I would like to commend to other IMDb users. It purports to be a biography of early nineteenth century composer Siegmund Romberg. Unfortunately biographies are not Hollywood's strong suite, and this one does not "cut the mustard" as a biography. Romberg was a Central European Jew who came to the U.S.A. as a refugee from the pre-first world war Hapsburg Empire; and made a very successful career as a much admired composer of light music, much of which was coupled with romantic songs written by Dorothy Donnolley for Broadway musicals. Here surely is a great subject for a biography which shows the trauma of being a refugee and the problems of an artist in becoming accepted in a new country with a different language and very different culture. Unfortunately this chance was blown in favour of a script which paraded all the musical stars that MGM could command, presenting re-creations of a series of extracts from his stage successes. However if accepted at this level the film is unusually successful, helped by a great cast and the direction of the often under-rated Stanley Donen. Romberg is remembered for writing light Viennese style romantic orchestral music which was extremely popular in the pre-jazz era, and I was surprised how enjoyable this music made watching the film. For me, and probably others of my generation, the music in more recent musicals does not often compare with that in this film.One of Romberg's best known stage works was 'The Desert Song', which has been filmed three times, (the 1929 version containing more of Romberg's music), and watching an Arabian Nights sequence featuring Cyd Charise and James Mitchell made me very sad that all colour copies of the 1929 film appear to have been lost (although a monochrome version prepared for TV has survived.) The background notes above may be helpful to the many people today who have never heard any of Romberg's music, but as a review of this film the following (which alone would not have satisfied the IMDb 10 line minimum criterion) is all that is needed: This is a perfect film to watch with a life partner, or significant other, at the start of a short vacation together. But it would be better seen in a cinema rather than on TV.