''Song o' My Heart'' is a 1930

Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...

American film directed by Frank Borzage and starring John McCormack,

Alice Joyce Alice Joyce Brown ( Joyce; October 1, 1890 – October 9, 1955) was an American actress who appeared in more than 200 films during the 1910s and 1920s. She is known for her roles in the 1923 film '' The Green Goddess'' and its 1930 remake of ...

, Maureen O'Sullivan,

Effie Ellsler Euphemia "Effie" Ellsler (September 17, 1855 – October 8, 1942) was an American actress of stage and screen whose career had its beginnings when she was a child and lasted well into the 1930s. She was best remembered over her early career for ...

and

John Garrick John Garrick (born Reginald Dandy; 31 August 1902 – 22 October 1966) was a British stage and screen actor. Born in Brighton, England, Dandy attended that city's schools and Brighton College. Dandy made his first stage appearance at t ...

. It was O'Sullivan's second film role. The film was double-shot in both conventional 35mm and the early

70 mm Grandeur film 70mm Grandeur film, also called Fox Grandeur or Grandeur 70, is a 70mm widescreen film format developed by William Fox through his Fox Film and Fox-Case corporations and used commercially on a small but successful scale in 1929–30. Filmography ...

widescreen format. Very few theaters were equipped with the necessary projection equipment to show it in the latter and it was never released in that format.

Synopsis

Sean O'Carolon (McCormack) has retired as an Irish tenor to a village where an old love of his, Mary (Joyce), resides with her children, Eileen (O'Sullivan) and Tad (Tommy Clifford). A once-famous opera singer, Sean has given up his career to live in his old Irish village, near Mary, who had been forced to marry someone else "for money, not love". Mary, now abandoned and with two children, struggles in poverty, and lives in the home of a horrid relation. Sean decides to resume his career as a concert singer, presumably (but not stated) to help Mary and perhaps resume their relationship. On tour in America, however, Sean learns that Mary has died. He decides to cut short his tour and return to Ireland to support Mary's children, and Eileen's marriage to her true love.

Production

Edwin Schneider, McCormack's real piano accompanist, plays the part of Sean's piano accompanist in the film. A lengthy segment of the movie is given over to an actual concert, purportedly in New York City but actually filmed on location in Philharmonic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles, a massive auditorium of the old "Hippodrome" variety. The director, Frank Borzage, was the Academy Award winner for direction in 1927 ('' Seventh Heaven'').

References

External links

''Song o' My Heart''
at

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

1930 films 1930s romance films Films produced by Frank Borzage Films directed by Frank Borzage American black-and-white films Fox Film films American romance films 1930s American films {{1930s-romance-film-stub