JOHN M’CORMACK FILM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 471, 4 June 1932, Page 25 (Supplement)

JOHN M’CORMACK FILM.

In “ Song o’ My Heart ”, which will start another return season at Everybody’s Theatre on Monday, the voice and personality of perhaps the world’s greatest tenor arc brought to the talking screen. John M’Cormack, the famous Irish singer, is the star, and, besides singing eleven beautiful numbers, he also takes the leading role in a romance that is as charming as it is sentimental. The songs are brought more or less logically into the sequence of the story. The most appreciated numbers perhaps are “ I Hear You Calling Me ”, “ Rose of Tralee ” and “ Little Boy Blue”, but others, though not so well known, are nearly as delightful. It is to hear M’Cormack sing that one goes to see “ Song o’ My Heart ”, but the star is also a good actor, and he gives realism to the part of an ambitious singer in Ireland, whose life is marred by a broken romance. The only girl he loves, a part which Alice Joyce plays very capably, marries another man, becomes the mother of a boy and girl, and is then deserted by her husband. Many years later she meets the singer again, and with him revives the old sweet memories of the past. In the part of the colleen whose troubled romance with the boy of her choice provides the story with a charming side-issue, Maureen O'Sullivan, the little Irish actress, is delightful. John Garrick is excellent also in the part of the young man. There is plenty of comedy in the film also, of the genuine Irish type. It is provided by J. Farrell Macdonald and .T. M. Kerrigan, two cronies who are for ever in a state of friendly warfare. Box plans at The Bristol.