Eddy Duchin's music was so beautiful. He had a magic touch at the piano. Unfortunately, his real life was so tragic.

Tyrone Power shines as Duchin. From his beginnings to success, Power evoked the right temperament in portraying this musician brilliantly.

Kim Novak, just off an awful performance in the acclaimed "Picnic," the year before, gives a wonderful supporting performance as Duchin's ill-fated first wife. Who can forget her fear of rain and thunder? Who can forget that thunder scene in the hospital as her life ends?

Victoria Shaw, as Eddy's second wife, is also quite good. She brings Eddy back so that life is worth living for him and is able to reconcile him with his young son, whose birth Duchin blamed for the death of his first wife.

We are fortunate to have had such a picture made and the legacy that Duchin left-his playing as well as his son, musician Peter Duchin.

In the late 20's, the talkative newly graduated in pharmacy and aspirant piano player Eddy Duchin (Tyrone Power) comes from Boston to New York expecting to play with the orchestra of Leo Reisman (Larry Keating) at fancy New York's Central Park Casino. However he had misunderstood the invitation of the maestro and while leaving the place, he meets the wealthy socialite Marjorie Oelrichs (Kim Novak) that asks Leo Reisman to give a chance to Eddy. He plays in the intermission and becomes a successful piano showman. Two years later, Marjorie and Eddy get married and in the Christmas, Marjorie has a baby, Peter, but she dies after the delivery. Eddy rejects Peter blaming him for the death of Marjorie and only five years later he meets his son. With the World War II, Eddy Duchin breaks up his band and enlists to fight in the war. With the end of the war, Eddy returns to New York with the intention of getting closer to Peter but he sees the boy connected to his friend Chiquita (Victoria Shaw). When Eddy discovers that he has a terminal disease, he proposes Chiquita and they get married.

When we see the biography of a personality by Hollywood, we are never sure that it is a true story or a fairy tale created by the cinema industry. Despite of that, the melodramatic "The Eddy Duchin Story" is a nice story of a man's life surrounded by music, beautiful ladies and tragedies. The forty-two year-old Tyrone Power has good performance and he really seems to be playing the piano, but it is funny to see him in the role of a newly graduated man. Kim Novak shines with her beauty, elegance and her sweet voice. Victoria Shaw is also gorgeous. The cinematography and the music score are awesome and deserved the nomination to the Oscar. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Melodia Immortal" ("Immortal Melody")

Before I get to the film itself, I want to stand on my soapbox for a moment. I have always hated it when Hollywood played fast and loose with facts in order to create a good story. In other words, when "true stories" turn out to be mostly schmaltz and fiction, the history teacher within me goes bananas! Some good examples are NIGHT AND DAY (which bears little semblance to the life of Cole Porter) and POCAHONTAS (which is so chock full of errors I don't even know where to start!). While the films are entertaining, they teach bad history and over-glamorize people--turning them into caricatures of themselves.

Because THE EDDY DUCHIN STORY is essentially a work of fiction, I couldn't get that excited about the movie. It was sort of like the opposite of Joe Friday's old motto "The story you are about to see is true, only the names were changed to protect the innocent". Here, however, the names are the same but everything else, to a degree, has been changed. Sadly, when I searched the web for more information about the real life Duchin, I was usually referred to this film--though most sources also said that the film is a fictionalized account!

Now, as a work of fiction, the film has its pluses and minuses. First let's talk about the good. I really liked the music--even though I generally don't care all that much for music of this era. Older big band songs were set to a style that were somewhat like subdued Liberace arrangements--but without THAT much improvisation. The acting was also very good and Power's performance had a bit more depth than usual plus he did a good job of pretending to play the piano well. Also, some of the schmaltz worked well--particularly at the end. Now for what was bad. The film all too often was filled with overly sentimental hooey. The death scene with his first wife (played by Kim Novak) was silly. The woman is supposed to be dying following giving birth, but she looks just fine. I am almost surprised that they didn't have the sky open up when she died--in a scene reminiscent of a Biblical epic. It was simply WAAAYY overdone. Also, all the foreshadowing leading up to it (with the silly talk about storms) was just silly and telegraphed the action way too much. Also, while I did like the music, I also thought that several of the songs could have been cut to speed up the action a bit.

So, if you like schmaltzy tear-jerkers NOT based on reality, try watching the film...or THE SOUND OF MUSIC (which, I must admit, I still love despite its many, many liberties with the truth) or any one of a number of other very entertaining but historically silly films. As for me, I'd much rather see a film based on the real Duchin--that would have been much more satisfying in the end.