Watch My Wild Irish Rose For Free

So much average

Awesome Movie

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This is a wonderful film and I have loved it since I recorded the soundtrack off TV all the way back in the late 1950s and played it to death for several years. No review of mine is necessary here as just about every one already shown pretty much raves about the film. My sole reason for writing here is to strongly correct an assertion made in one of the more recently-dated reviews, this by John Ryan, who states that Dennis Morgan did not sing in the film, but was dubbed by Dennis Day. That is patently untrue. Mr. Morgan does all his own singing, and his voice could hardly be more different from Dennis Day's if he were Mario Lanza! The mix-up may be due to the fact that Dennis Day did record a three-disc set for RCA Victor with songs from the movie, but his voice is not heard in it at all. For the record, much as I like Dennis Morgan in the film, Dennis Day had three times his voice and much better high notes. Morgan may be listed as a tenor, but he mostly sings in high baritone keys throughout. But his singing is still quite enjoyable. For the record, I have several acoustical recordings of Chauncey Olcott, and whatever his stage attributes may have been, he did not sing even as well as Dennis Morgan, let alone Dennis Day.

Copyright 27 December 1947 by Warner Bros Pictures, Inc. A First National picture. New York opening at the Strand: 24 December 1947. U.S. release: 27 December 1947. U.K. release: 27 December 1948 (sic). Australian release: 27 January 1949 (sic). 9,115 feet. 101 minutes.SYNOPSIS: When William Scanlan's voice fails on tour, Chauncey Olcott agrees to dub his singing from hidden positions on the stage. Eventually, Scanlan's voice cracks to such an extent that he can no longer deliver his lines. One St Patrick's night in Boston, Olcott substitutes for Scanlan on stage. After a near-riot, Olcott is accepted by the crowd after he sings "A Little Bit of Heaven". At this point, Scanlan himself walks on stage to give Olcott his blessing. Olcott continues with the tour, triumphing in such shows as Mavourneen, Sweet Inniscarra and The Carey Fair.NOTES: Heindorf and Steiner were both nominated for an Academy Award for Scoring of a Musical Picture, losing to Alfred Newman's "Mother Wore Tights".Although it didn't make the top ten, "My Wild Irish Rose" was a huge box-office success, despite unenthusiastic, even condemnatory reviews.COMMENT: A feast of green for lovers of old Erin and old-time minstrel shows. Visually, the screen is so flooded with various shades of green, by film's end all other colors have virtually been extinguished. Aurally, the producer supplies such a fulsome musical program, he scarce has room for his story. Not that I'm complaining. No, sirree! There's more than enough humor left to float a dozen rounds of Irish laughter, enough tears to move all but the flintiest Anglo hearts. Especially moving is the scene in which Scanlan, played by William Frawley — his finest performance ever! — gives young Olcott his watch.The only area in which film-lovers will feel short-changed lies in the direction of Miss Arlene Dahl. Now I am not a fan of the blandly doll-like Dahl, so it doesn't worry me that her part has been cut to ribbons and that she is outclassed and out-acted almost right off the screen. With fine players like Alan Hale, Andrea King, George O'Brien, Ben Blue and the aforesaid William Frawley on hand, who needs a spiritless Kewpie doll?OTHER VIEWS: Superlative sound recording really does justice to this account of Irish tenor Chauncey Olcott, superbly enacted by Dennis Morgan who was never in better voice than in this feast of Irish song and dance. Musical number succeeds musical number with each one more lavish than the one before, until finally mind and heart can bear the strain no longer. True the story is pretty facile, but who cares when it serves so admirably as a peg on which such a musical feast is imposed? Beautifully photographed and costumed, lavishly produced, with a wonderful array of character actors including Emmett Vogan (doctor), Grady Sutton ("sick" minstrel), Andrew Tombes (bogus bartender) and Hale, Tobias, Ben Blue, etc. Perhaps to say the script is facile is to dismiss it too easily. It does have some wonderful moments — Morgan's killing the bass drum is a wonderful joke and Allgood's regretting her lost opportunity to say it first is a very nice piece of drama. The director makes sure everything is easy on the eye, the dances, music and above all the songs and sound are marvelous. - JHR writing as George Addison.

One of the better musical bios. Dennis Morgan is great as the singer/composer Chauncey Olcutt. The supporting cast is very good, especially Andrea King as the glamorous Lillian Russell. The turn of the century atmosphere is the perfect setting. The technicolor is excellent. A simple plot, but the movie just makes you feel good. Morgan was always underrated as an actor and a singer.

I enjoyed this film very much. I found it to be very entertaining for me in that I feel that it captured the romanticism of turn of the century Irish-American culture. There's no messages. There's no violence and there's no overt sex, just wholesome 1947 style entertainment and Dennis Morgan had a chance to sing some really good songs. A really good movie.