THE GREAT CARUSO (1951) C 109m dir: Richard Thorpe

w/Mario Lanza, Ann Blyth, Dorothy Kirsten, Jarmila Novotna, Richard Hageman, Carl Benton Reid

From Variety's contemporary review of the film: "This highly fictionalized, sentimental biog of the late, great Metropolitan Opera tenor, Enrico Caruso, handsomely mounted in Technicolor, has a lot of popular ingredients, including a boy-and-girl-vs-disapproving-parent romance, the draw of Caruso's rep, glamor of the Met, a host of sure-fire, familiar operatic arias, and the pull of Mario Lanza.

"Otherwise, the film is a superficial pic, bearing little relationship to Caruso's actual story, which was a much more dramatic one than emerges here. ...

" ... Lanza is handsome, personable and has a brilliant voice. He's a lyric tenor, like Caruso; has his stocky build, his Italianate quality and some of his flair. Dorothy Kirsten, who plays a Met soprano befriending Caruso, is a good actress as well as a gifted singer."

THE GREAT CARUSO won an Oscar for Best Sound Recording (MGM Studio Sound Department). It was also nominated for Best Color Costume Design (Helen Rose, Gile Steele) and Scoring of a Musical Picture (Peter Herman Adler, Johnny Green).