For a movie that's about the life of Fredric Chopin the guy who's playing Chopin gets third billing in the film. Cornel Wilde had to settle for third place behind Paul Muni and Merle Oberon. But he's the one that came away with the Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

We're lucky this film got made at all. Paul Muni was a great actor, but sometimes could be very difficult. While he was at Columbia where this film turned out to be the second of three he did there, he formed a friendship with Glenn Ford. But in 1943 Ford went into the Marines and didn't return to Hollywood until 1946. Cornel Wilde who had enlisted earlier got out earlier and when the Chopin project was ready to roll he was assigned the part.

Which disappointed Muni and he made no secret of it to Wilde. Wilde who had admired Muni as an actor and looked forward to working with him was miffed to say the least.

Harry Cohn in his infinite wisdom also banned Bella Muni from the set of A Song to Remember. Muni did EVERYTHING with his wife and she really was his best critic. At Warner Brothers they put up with her. If she said a take was no good, Muni had them do it over. Worked for Emile Zola and Louis Pasteur. But Cohn banned her. As a result Muni was criticized for overacting his role of Joseph Elzner, Chopin's teacher and mentor. It's not his finest hour on the screen, though I love to see him in anything.

Muni also had his supportive side. Nina Foch who played Chopin's sister speaks of Muni's kindness and encouragement to her to stretch herself as an artist.

No acting involved for Merle Oberon as novelist George Sand. The male trousers of George Sand fit Oberon quite well. So does the character. Oberon and Sand were both known to get around in their day.

In real life Fredric Chopin had no conflict between his art and his politics. Though Poland was not a nation for about 130 years, the people in the various countries that occupied Polish soil never forgot they were a nation and would be one again. On instructions after his death, Chopin's body was buried in his adopted city of Paris, but his heart was removed and buried in Poland.

Chopin composed some of the best music that was ever heard on this planet. Jose Iturbi played the various Chopin melodies that will live on until this planet's sun does a supernova.

Cornel Wilde was nominated for Best Actor, but lost to Ray Milland's drunk act in The Lost Weekend. A Song to Remember was nominated in several categories, Best Story, Best Sound, Best Color Cinematography, Best Costumes, Best Musical Scoring. But didn't take home the big prize for anything.

Overlooking some of the historical inaccuracies and Paul Muni's overacting, A Song To Remember is a film to remember.

Of the three Chopin biopics- this, 2002's Desire of Love and 1991's Impromptu- Impromptu, for all its flaws is the best of the three, being the best-looking, the best-acted and having the best balance between humour, intelligence and pathos. A Song to Remember has some glaring problems and also some unforgettably good things, not as good as Impromptu but better than the tedious, disjointed and soap-opera-ish Desire of Love.

A Song to Remember's weaknesses are, in comparison to its plaudits, not a great many, but sadly the weaknesses are rather big. The biggest flaw was Paul Muni (a usually fine actor) as Elsner, who even for a purposefully eccentric role is far too wildly over-the-top that the character (who is also used far too much that you wonder whether he is the central character and not Chopin) came over as an annoying cartoon rather than a real character, and it is very distracting sad to say. Merle Oberon fares a little better, because she is a little more emotive and subtle in performance and actually seems like she was trying to connect with the character and the subject matter, that said she is also miscast, being rather too haughty, too attractive, too feminine and too fiery as Sand. A large part of the problem though is the very unsympathetic and somewhat nymphomaniac-like way that Sand is written in, so it is a big problem when the viewer is questioning what does Chopin see in this woman rather than being moved by their romance.

Some of the script is also rather weak. Some of it is intelligent, witty and poignant but too many parts flow awkwardly, are saccharinely flowery ("You can make miracles of music in Majorca" is a particular clunker) and cause some unintentional humour in over-egged parts like the confrontation between Chopin, Sand and Elsner. It also too often only scratches the surface with what happened with not enough depth going on, Chopin and Sand's relationship is actually really fascinating, more so than it has been portrayed to be so far, but it's explored superficially here (Impromptu's portrayal of it fares the closest and best realised of the Chopin biopics, and even then it had its rushed and underplayed parts especially in the early stages). If there more of them on screen together (they were like supporting characters),much less of Muni (whose numerous scenes drag the film down and are not that interesting really),more intimacy in the chemistry and if Sand was written in a more dimensional way it would have worked better.

However, A Song to Remember is particularly worth watching for the music, both Miklos Rosza's beautifully complimenting score and how the great man's music is featured. Chopin's music is some of the hauntingly beautiful and soul-searching of any composer to exist, and even when truncated the beauty, emotion and power is not once lost. This is thanks to pianist José Iturbi, who dubs for Cornel Wilde brilliantly with piano playing that's lyrical, achingly beautiful, fiery and seductive, wonderful music and equally wonderful playing should transport one to another world and Iturbi playing Chopin certainly does. Once more, the music is recorded well and quite rightly takes centre stage when it should do, instead of being just background music. The whole film looks great too, with gorgeous Technicolor photography, evocative costumes and opulent production design. Charles Vidor does direct with engagement and captures the spirit of the times well, while the story (though with some draggy spots and a case of the basic events being there, though with some glaring inaccuracies and changes in chronology, but not in enough detail) still fascinates and still entertains and moves if not to its full potential.

The meeting between Chopin and Liszt is pure magic, and the final seventeen minutes are truly unforgettable, even if the film doesn't always engage completely up to then from then on it's edge-of-your-seat stuff. Cornel Wilde, despite being as mentioned by other reviews being wrong physically (tall, handsome and muscular rather than frail, plain and consumptive) still comes off credibly as Chopin and certainly shows the most emotion, dramatic engagement and subtlety of all the three leads, charmingly and affectingly low-key and not as stiff as feared. His fingering is also convincing that you are convinced that it is him playing. Stephen Bekassy is also strong casting as Liszt.

In conclusion, interesting and decent but could have been much better. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I am no expert on the life of Chopin, but I did a bit of reading and learned that the film is a very highly fictionalized version of his life. Apparently, the studio thought his life wasn't exciting enough to film it as it was...but also they chose to add a lot of Polish patriotism to the film because of WWII. Now I am not saying Chopin liked Poland being dominated and controlled by Russia at that time...but the film overexaggerated it to help bolster the war effort. As a retired history teacher, I resent such changes...and often showing these folks' lives as they really were would still make for compelling movies.

While the film is about the life and career of Frédéric Chopin (Cornell Wilde),the real star of the film is Professor Elsner (Paul Muni)...Chopin's teacher....and a man who apparently never existed and was created for the movie. Additionally, the two actors were vastly different in the film, with Muni giving an over-the-top performance (chewing scenery throughout the movie) and Wilde giving a surprisingly quiet and muted performance. Wilde was nominated for an Oscar...which could indicate that the Academy probably preferred this sort of portrayal.

If you can look past the poor history here and Muni's tendency to dominate the movie (even though he is not supposed to be the main character),what you have left is very lovely. The music is, not surprisingly, lovely. The cinematography and colors are vivid and beautiful. The only negative here is Chopin's visit to Majorca...which, frankly, looks like cheap matte paintings instead of a Mediterranean isle.

Overall, this is a glossy and well made film but one that only gives you a glimpse of the real Chopin...which is pretty typical of many Hollywood biopics.