Movie Biographies: The Eddy Duchin Story

1956 Biography  
From Columbia Pictures
Directed by George Sidney 

Starring
Tyrone Power
Kim Novak
Victoria Shaw
James Whitmore
Rex Thompson
Shepperd Strudwick
Frieda Inescort
Larry Keating

It was like a gift bag when I first saw it.  Watching it again a couple of hours ago, it felt like my favorite old robe.  It's a bio which usually doesn't fail to get my attention, and in this case it's one of a famous pianist and orchestra leader, always a gravitational pull for me.  The music throughout the film is gloriously nostalgic and occasionally heartbreaking.  It's about realizing your dream and staying in it.  Because it's about New York high society in the 30s and 40s, the film looks like a beautiful painting.

It doesn't claim to be about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  It didn't say that it is based on but that is the case.  In the limited way I know of Eddy Duchin, the major points are covered and the major points are sad... most all of them.  Dressed up by Hollywood it certainly is, but the essence of the man's life is here.

And let's not forget, not for a moment, two other wonderful offerings.  The Eddy Duchin Story gave us the still-handsome, former matinee idol of two decades and the reigning blonde movie goddess as the star-crossed lovers.  Be still my heart.

Eddy Duchin (Power) was known as the society orchestra leader.  He had graduated from pharmacy school in Boston but chose to head to Manhattan where he had been promised a job playing piano by none other than Leo Reisman (Keating) whose orchestra it is.  Reisman is playing a long gig at the famed Central Park Casino.  It had been around in one incarnation or another since 1864 and in the late 20s when Duchin first encountered it, it was a high-class dance joint right smack in Central Park that catered strictly to the well-connected.  It was a steady hangout for New York's famed mayor, Jimmy Walker.

Duchin is a damned good piano player (I'm guessing Liberace was a fan and copied some things) but what he wanted to be was a rich, damned good piano player.  He loved rubbing up against the snooty set.  In one scene he has a reality check and is livid when he realizes that he has been asked to attend a society party to play piano when he thought it was simply as a respected if not honored guest.

The casino represents everything he admires about the city and soon he has taken over the stage with his own orchestra.  He keeps with him Lou Sherwood (Whitmore), Reisman's manager, who will stay with Duchin until the end. 

Duchin meets Marjorie Oelrichs (Novak) at the casino as she is watching over those who are setting up for an elaborate party.  Both are smitten at first sight and begin a romance.

The montage of New York scenes, mainly without dialogue, as the lovers stroll, laugh, kiss and talk is gorgeous, certainly one of the visual highlights.

There are also scenes of the Duchins in society and at home designed to show how deeply they love one another.  Duchin had been an independent chap and with her wealth, she certainly didn't need a man.  But the screenwriter Samuel (Sabrina, Vertigo) Taylor fashioned a believable look at a couple who clung to one another above all else.

Therefore, when Marjorie dies six days after having her first child, Duchin is devastated.  He leaves his newborn son with Marjorie's aunt and uncle (Inescort, Strudwick) and he and Lou embark on a five-year tour, after which Duchin goes into the service.

One of the film's touching scenes is when Duchin comes across a damaged piano in a bomb-inflicted neighborhood and runs across a native boy (adorable Warren Hsieh) whom he befriends as they play the piano together.

After first seeing his son, Peter, Duchin would not see him for the five years of touring.  When he finally meets him again (played by Mickey Maga at this point), things are little more than polite.  Then Duchin doesn't see him again during the military years.  

At their next meeting, Peter (now played by Rex Thompson) is almost hostile and Duchin is not able to handle it so well.  Peter has become a good pianist at 12 due to his being taught by Chiquita (Shaw), an Englishwoman staying with the aunt and uncle.  Peter and Chiquita, once together as companions, now are more like mother and son.

Power with his two leading ladies

Chiquita is able to quell the hostility that affects both father and son and ultimately she is successful.  There is a tender scene between father and son involving a storm and numerous fun scenes of the kid at the piano.

In real life Duchin died of leukemia but the film seems to indicate it was something else without actually mentioning what.  Of course what is shown is something affecting his hands and yet he is given just a short time to live.  He and Chiquita decide to marry.

It then becomes time to tell Peter of Duchin's impending death.  It is staged in Central Park at a playground that was once the casino.  He starts with small talk like pointing out the luxury high-rise where he and Peter's mother had lived.  Duchin is not finding it easy while Peter in his impatience blurts out that he knows his father is trying to tell him he is going to leave again.  The scene may be a little overwrought for some but I was again touched with how it played out.  

And that is so with the ending as well.  Duchin and Peter are playing dual pianos in their living room as Chiquita looks on.  Peter gets an alarmed look on his face and the camera pans to Duchin at his piano and he is not there.

Former MGM director Sidney was brought to Columbia to make the film.  He was one who is responsible for some of the studio's great musicals.  

Power is earnest in his portrayal of Duchin.  (They had met and become friends around the time that Duchin was dying.)  The actor did not do his own piano playing (Carmen Cavallero did that) but he did get some schooling in how to make it look real.  Novak is equally earnest as the beautiful socialite although she's not given a great deal to do.  I found their love scenes tender and believable.

It's that believable part that shows how good they were in their jobs because there was apparently no love lost.  In years past she would explain her behavior as being insecure and when asked about her leading men, she said things about Power that seemed vague.  He was not so vague.  He often left it with he didn't care for her but he's also on record as saying confusion between temperament and bad manners is unfortunate.   

Australian Victoria Shaw made her film debut here and when I like an actor in a film debut, I will forever see her in that role.  Shaw could have been a handful in real life but she has always remained the decent, soft-spoken, well-spoken, loving Chiquita.  The actress didn't have much of a career, was married briefly to Roger Smith before he married Ann-Margret, and Shaw died young.  

James Whitmore was a welcome presence in any movie. The hero's right-hand man was a familiar circumstance Whitmore frequently found himself in.  He had just done so as Van Heflin's shadow in Battle Cry.  He was damned good at knocking some sense into the handsome head of his boss.  He was always good-hearted, frank-speaking and protective.    

Young Rex Thompson was delightful as the older Peter and I thought he maneuvered among his emotional scenes with great aplomb for someone so young.  He would finish this role and immediately start The King and I as Deborah Kerr's son.  

The real Peter Duchin, still alive, grew up to become a pianist and bandleader just like his father.  He had the same look and style as well and traveled in high society.  In 1996 he would write a memoir, Ghost of a Chance.  

There were, of course, some things the story left out or glossed over... and it's just as well in some cases.  Most importantly, perhaps, is that between Duchin's two marriages, he was involved with two other women, each of whom had a child with him. 

When Marjorie married Duchin, she was taken off the New York Social Register because he was Jewish.  Who cares, she cooed.  It's just a phone book.

The real Eddy Duchin

The film showed Peter and Chiquita as being very close and at least implying that she would care for him after Duchin's passing but that, in fact, did not happen.  Peter went to live with Marjorie's close friends, Mr. and Mrs. W. Averell Harriman. He is the son of a railroad baron and eventual Commerce Secretary under Truman and a governor of New York and she was a socialite.  Their fictional selves are the aunt and uncle in the film.

I wonder how many caught it when Kim Novak, while calling for others to join her and her partner on the dance floor, says c'mon Harry, c'mon Joan... those being the names of Columbia's evil chief Harry Cohn and his wife Joan.

Eddy Duchin would die at age 41 and it was sad hearing Power say as Duchin I don't want to die... I don't when Power himself would be dead two years later at age 45.

The film I saw could only have been done in the fifties.  Give the audiences what they want, what they expect.  The Eddy Duchin Story was a big hit with audiences.

Here's your peek:

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As long as we're highlighting
bandleaders... here's a fictional one