Seven Sweethearts

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Seven Sweethearts
V. Heflin K. Grayson Seven Sweethearts 1942 Frank Borzage.png
Van Heflin and Kathryn Grayson
Directed by Frank Borzage
Screenplay by Walter Reisch
Leo Townsend
Based onSeven Sisters
1903 play
by Ferenc Herczeg
Produced byFrank Borzage
Joe Pasternak
Starring Kathryn Grayson
Marsha Hunt
Cecilia Parker
Van Heflin
Cinematography George J. Folsey
Leonard Smith (uncredited)
Edited by Blanche Sewell
Music by Franz Waxman
Production
company
Distributed byLoew's Inc.
Release date
  • November 13, 1942 (1942-11-13)
Running time
98 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$752,000 [1]
Box office$1,686,000 [1]

Seven Sweethearts is a 1942 musical film directed by Frank Borzage and starring Kathryn Grayson, Marsha Hunt and Van Heflin.

Contents

In 1949, Hungarian playwright Ferenc Herczeg sued MGM, producer Joe Pasternak and screenwriters Walter Reisch and Leo Townsend for $200,000,[ clarification needed ] alleging that they had plagiarized Herczeg's 1903 play Seven Sisters, which Paramount Pictures had adapted into the 1915 film The Seven Sisters , starring Madge Evans. [2]

Kathryn Grayson's real-life sister Frances Raeburn plays Cornelius.

Plot

Mr. Van Maaster is a hotelier in Little Delft, Michigan. By family tradition, the oldest of his seven daughters must marry first, but Regina wants to move to New York to become an actress. The youngest, Billie, has the sweetest singing voice. All seven sisters are married in the same ceremony. [3]

Cast

Music

Although sometimes tagged as a musical, all the songs in the film are diegetic, with no unheard accompaniment to the songs, and all with Billie as soloist. They include an English version ("There Is a Dreamboat on High") of a berceuse (Wiegenlied/lullaby), long attributed (and in the film) to Mozart, but it was in fact composed by Friedrich Fleischmann ( Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein , 1799). [4]

A scene in which a pianist lodger plays a melody to lull the hotelier to sleep features "Rock-a-bye Baby", derived from English ballad "Lillibullero", itself derived from the quickstep section of a march by Henry Purcell. At a climactic moment in the tulip festival the aria "Je suis Titania" (from the French opera Mignon ) is heard. Other songs written by the team of Walter Jurmann (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) featuring Kathryn Grayson as soloist include "You and the Waltz and I", "Little Tingle Tangle Toes" and "Tulip Time".

Reception

According to MGM records the film earned $638,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $1,048,000 elsewhere (a rarity for MGM, as most films earned more money domestically until after World War II), [5] returning a profit of $364,000. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  2. ↑ "Seven Sweethearts articles & reviews". Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved September 1, 2024.
  3. ↑ "Seven Sweethearts (1942) - Frank Borzage | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related | AllMovie".
  4. ↑ or Bernhard Flies. Goretzki, Elfriede; Krickenberg, Dieter (1988). "Das Wiegenlied 'von Mozart'". Mitteilungen der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum. 36 (1–4). Salzburg: 114–118.
  5. ↑ Kyle W. J. Tabbernor, "'Subbed-Titles': Hollywood, the Art House Market and the Best Foreign Language Film Category at the Oscars" (Ph.D. diss., University of Western Ontario, 2013), 16-17. See also Richard Shale, The Academy Awards Index: The Complete Categorical and Chronological Record (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), 277.
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