balletamie's video: STUDENT PRINCE band5 Summertime in Heildelberg

"Summertime in Heildelberg" LP Soundtrack "The Student Prince" MGM 1954. Mario amazing Lanza, tenor. ____________________________________ August 1952 was to be another landmark , the recording of the soundtrack of "The Student Prince", the whole recording was done in single takes, there were three new songs for the movie one of which was "I'll Walk With God" which was to become another Lanza classic, the singing on this recording is nothing short of perfection, from the full powered "Drinking Song" to the emotional and tender "Summertime in Heidelburgh" his voice is in complete control, and every phrase is Mario magic at its best. But on the film set things were not to go well at all, the first scene to be shot was the "Beloved" scene on the terrace, the director Curtis Bernhardt decide he did not like the way the song was sung, he corrected Mario telling him that he was putting too much emotion in his singing and that he was to sound more stuffy and rigid and to project the feeling more of a Prussian prince, Mario of course took exeption to this, and promptly told Bernhardt that he was to direct his acting, and that the singing was his (Mario's) department, the director would not accept this and Mario would not be told how to sing by a movie director, the end result was that Mario walked of the set and vowed not to return as long as Bernhardt was the director, in the end the studio took an injunction against Mario for damages and losses, the damages came to $700,000 and $4.5 million for losses and for cancelling the picture, they were also successful in gaining an injuction over his singing carreer, he could not perform in public, on radio, record or in effect work at all for the remaining time of his contract with MGM, which at that time was another 15 months, a solution was agreed in May 1953 that the studio would remove the embargo on Mario if he would allow his voice to be used and another actor play the part of the prince, this was agreed to and the filming got under way with Edmund Purdom miming Mario, to be fair to Edmund Purdom he did a marvellous job, and the film is a credit to all concerned, and of course we have Mario's fantastic sountrack recording. The irony of the whole sorry situation is that when the film was finally made the director was Richard Thorpe the director who had worked so harmoniously with Mario on "The Great Caruso". During the time that the embargo was in force RCA kept up a steady release of new Mario records by useing the tapes from the Coca Cola shows. Mario could now go back to work. ____________________________________