Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1942
Seven Sweethearts
Buy Seven Sweethearts now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Seven Sweethearts' is a 1942 musical film directed by Frank Borzage and starring Kathryn Grayson, Marsha Hunt and Van Heflin.
'Seven Sweethearts' generated legal trouble seven years later. In 1949, Hungarian playwright Ferenc Herczeg sued MGM, producer Joe Pasternak and screenwriters Walter Reisch and Leo Townsend for $200,000, claiming they had plagiarized his play 'Seven Sisters', which he had written in 1903 and which Paramount Pictures had adapted into 'The Seven Sisters' a 1915 movie starring Madge Evans.http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/2833/Seven-Sweethearts/articles.html
Kathryn Grayson's real-life sister, Frances Raeburn, played "Cornelius."
Plot summary
Mr. Van Maaster (S.Z. Sakall) is a hotelier in Little Delft, Michigan. By family tradition, the oldest of his seven daughters must marry first. But Regina (Marsha Hunt) wants to go to New York, to become an actress. The youngest, Billie (Kathryn Grayson), has the sweetest singing voice, and she ends up marrying Henry Taggart (Van Heflin) while the other sisters including Regina also get married at the same time, so all sisters marry in the same ceremony.
Although sometimes tagged as a musical, all the songs in the film are diegetic, i.e. there is no unheard accompaniment to the songs, and all with Billie as soloist. They include an English-lyric ("There is a Dreamboat on High") version of a 'berceuse' ('Wiegenlied'/lullaby), long attributed (and in the film) to Mozart but in fact composed by Friedrich Fleischmann ('Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein', 1799)or Bernhard Flies. Interestingly, a scene where a pianist-lodger plays a melody intended to lull the father/hotelier to sleep features Rock-a-bye Baby, derived from the often-retexted English ballad Lillibullero, itself derived from the quickstep section of a march by Henry Purcell. At a climactic moment in the tulip festival, she sings the beginning of the aria, "Je suis Titania" (polonaise, from Act II, Scene 2 of the French opera 'Mignon' by Ambroise Thomas, lyrics by Jules Barbier). Other songs featuring Kathryn Grayson as soloist, by the songwriting team of Walter Jurmann (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics), include "You and the Waltz and I", "Little Tingle Tangle Toes", and "Tulip Time".
Cast
* Kathryn Grayson as Billie Van Maaster
* Marsha Hunt as Regina 'Reggie' Van Maaster
* Cecilia Parker as Victor Van Maaster
* Peggy Moran as Albert 'Al' Van Maaster
* Dorothy Morris as Peter Van Maaster
* Frances Rafferty as George Van Maaster
* Frances Raeburn as Cornelius Van Maaster
* Van Heflin as Henry Taggart
* Carl Esmond as Carl Randall
* Michael Butler as Bernard Groton, Peter's Beau
* Cliff Danielson as Martin Leyden, Victor's Beau
* William Roberts as Anthony Vreeland, Cornelius's Beau
* James Warren as Theodore Vaney, Albert's Beau
* Dick Simmons as Paul Brandt, George's Beau
* S. Z. Sakall as Mr. Van Maaster, the Father
* Diana Lewis as Mrs. Nugent
* Lewis Howard as Mr. Nugent
* Donald Meek as Reverend Howgan
* Louise Beavers as Petunia
Reception
According to MGM records the film made $638,000 in the US and Canada and $1,048,000 elsewhere (a rarity for MGM, as most movies earned more money domestically until after WWII);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. this gave the studio a profit of $364,000.
References
Buy Seven Sweethearts now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1942