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NY Times Review
August 15, 1959 Mario Lanza in Good Voice in New Film HOWARD THOMPSON.
SURPRISE! A Mario Lanza picture actually succeeds in being moving. We're speaking of yesterday's new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release called, very appropriately, "For the First Time." The Roxy's new tenant is decidedly one of the better screen vehicles for the voluminous tenor. It could and should have been his best.
Filmed in eye-catching color in such picturesque locales as Rome, Naples, Capri, Selzburg, Vienna and Berlin under a German-Italian production banner, the picture offers some nifty Continental scenery and plenty of evidence that Mr. Lanza's tenor is as ripe as ever. Lanza fans will also note that the singer has shed some poundage since last year's "Seven Hills of Rome," when he looked like the eighth. Toning his voice down, mercifully, he never sounded better.
The core of the picture is Mr. Lanza's romance with a deaf girl, played by a lovely actress named Johanna Von Koszian. And it is to the credit of the producer, Alexander Gruter, and the rather original script by Andrew Solt, that this love story is cluttered with little nonsense. With a beautiful performance by Miss Von Koszian, as a gentle Capri islander, it is small wonder that Mr. Lanza's courtship is as convincing as it is ardent.
A good half of the film is lusciously set on Capri, where such people as Kurt Kasznar, his manager, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, as a prowling countess, and a score of friendly islanders look in occasionally for some harmless, light-hearted interludes. The middle third, in fact, is excellent—when Mr. Lanza gives concerts in various European capitals, hopping all over the map to pay for his war-disabled fiancée's operation.
Under the restrained direction of Rudy Mate, the scene where Mr. Lanza tests the hospitalized girl's hearing with Schubert's "Ave Maria" is touching indeed. The sniffling in the balcony yesterday at the Roxy was fierce. One male viewer counted handkerchiefs in the hands of nine feminine viewers.
Mr. Lanza's almost continual outpouring of music—and this must have been Mr. Mate's hand again—underscores the girl's plight and the genuine pathos of the romance. The hero's delivery of "O sole mio," "Vesti la giubba" from "Pagliacci," and the final aria from Verdi's "Otello" are splendidly rendered and recorded (they all are), and there are some dozen more numbers, including selections from Grieg, Mozart, folk tunes and the title song.
This viewer wishes that a colorful, melodious romance, with the very music adding to the pathos, had dared to follow through with a logical, strong, down-beat ending. But with the appeal of Mr. Lanza's voice, Miss Von Koszian's performance and the splendor of the background, the tenor has his mist disarming vehicle in years.
Tommy Leonetti, Helene and Howard, and Jesse Eliott are featured in the new musical revue on the stage of the Roxy.
The Cast FOR THE FIRST TIME, screen play by Andrew Solt; directed by Rudy Mate; produced by Alexander Gruter for Corona Films, Germany, and Astor Film, Italy, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the Roxy Theatre, Seventh Avenue and Fiftieth Street. Running time: ninety-seven minutes. Tonio Costa . . . . . Mario Lanza Christa Bruckner . . . . . Johanna Von Koszien Ladislas Tabori . . . . . Kurt Kasznar Gloria de Vadnuz . . . . . Zsa Zsa Gabor Albert Bruckner . . . . . Hans Sohnker Leopold Huebner . . . . . Peter Capell Angelo . . . . . Renzo Cesana Alessandro . . . . . Sandro Giglio
© 2014 The New York Times Company
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Time Magazine Review
For the First Time (Corona; MGM) presents outsize Tenor Mario ("My voice is the greatest in the world") Lanza as an "unpredictable, erratic, self-centered" American singer who is chased by an overdressed, "publicity-loving" international party girl (Zsa Zsa Gabor). The casting is pluperfect, but most of the picture is a pretentious bore. The pre recorded songs seem unable to locate Lanza's lips, and some of the arias might even have been scraped off old Lanza sound tracks. The only new number, a "Jamaican rock 'n' roll" item called Pineapple Pickers, summons little of the old Mario magic and all of the old mannerisms: aggressive smile, athletic nostrils, orbiting eyeballs and quivering poundage.
The tenuous plot has the out-of-sorts singer brought to his senses by a pretty Viennese Fräulein, nicely played by German Actress Johanna von Koczian, in her American screen debut. She is the only woman on the Continent whom Mario can trust to love him for love alone. Reason: she is stone deaf. That is, until she has that operation, "dangerously close to the brain." If, like Johanna, moviegoers could keep their ears closed and their eyes open, they might enjoy Salzburg, Rome, Capri and Anacapri in fetching color. And by letting Zsa Zsa be Zsa Zsa, Director Rudi (Dodsworth) Mate has managed to extract a jigger of humor from a magnum of slush. When Mario protests the presence of reporters at what was to be an intimate little party, Zsa Zsa says: "But dahr-link, deese are my most intimate friends — United Press, Associated Press, and Meester Reuter!"
Read more: Cinema: The New Pictures, Aug. 31, 1959 - TIME
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This blog lists every MGM musical. Please click on a title for posters, film clips, trailers and...
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