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the audience applauded

I wanted to but couldn't!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good movie but grossly overrated

It's a very good story, like an interesting experiment in musical psychology, delving into and trying to reach the very essence and nature of the extreme sensitivity of the musical sense, but the acting is a bit stiff, and the story, although tremendously good and interesting, doesn't quite come alive. Catherine McLeod saves the picture, her acting is wholly satisfactory and convincing all the way, but the others are at times a bit too wooden. Philip Dorn is more abominable than not as the utterly rude and indecent conductor who thinks he can go at any length in insulting Catherine in the name of music, and no wonder she abandons music on conditions like that. There are many details in this artificial set-up that just don't work, they are neither credible nor natural, but there is nothing wrong with the idea. Although Frank Borzage made several films of music, and they are all good, it's over-evident that he was no musician himself. On the whole, forget the flaws in the acting, the direction and the lack of musical realism but please follow and study the idea and the story, because the thoughts behind all this were humanly and psychologivally very interesting indeed.

I love Frank Borzage's films (STREET ANGEL, 7TH HEAVEN, A FAREWELL TO ARMS, DESIRE, THREE COMRADES, THE MORTAL STORM being my favorites). Borzage was a director of immense talent and sensibility, a true master in every sense. I'VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU is his most lavishly produced film, in glorious Technicolor, and contains extremely beautiful sequences, but unfortunately falls short of being a great work. Borden Chase, the screenwriter, must be responsible for this, as he presents the character of the great Maestro Goronoff as not only arrogant, which could be easily understood, but also immature and frankly ridiculous in his womanizing, thus rendering him a type of buffoon most of the time. One can never understand the love that Myra Hassman feels for him, in spite of Catherine McLeod's fine performance. Thus, when the story reaches its first climax and Goronoff tries to steal the brilliance of his pupil first public concert (in Carnegie Hall, of all places) out of sheer jealousy, the impact of the scene is lessened. We never see the somber shades of his personality creeping in. The effect is incongruous. We cannot take this man seriously. Philip Dorn does not help, either. His acting is unnatural, a pure caricature that does not let a possible tragic dimension of his character shine through. Too bad. The ending is satisfying, at least, and we are left with the lovely image of Catherine McLeod in our memory. She was indeed a good actress and deserved to have had a more successful career.

...and I always will...Some say his post WW2 works were inferior to the thirties major works .Perhaps so.But it is no reason to dismiss them."I've always loved you" is unique,it defines music as a way of communicating emotions.Leopold and Myra use Rachmaninoff (mainly "Second" ),Beethoven ,Lizt and other musicians to express their admiration,their tenderness,their love,their jealousy,their pride,their lust for life,their hate,their contempt ,you name it.In the central scene ,where Myra plays the piano with Leopold's full symphonic orchestra is a real desperate fight ,probably the best concert scene ever filmed (with the eventual exception of Hitchcock's "the man who knew too much" (1956))And that scene is followed by another one where the two musicians ,although miles apart ,continue their "conversation" in a strange telepathy.The audience who knows Borzage's earlier works (such as "three comrades" "little man what now?" "mortal storm" "cargo" ...) might be disoriented while watching the beginning of the movie .But the master's touch is still here.Two elements are Borzagesque:the first is George's character.He is akin to Hans ("little man" ) and to the "three comrades" .He is the man who believes in true love ,the simple man who is like a bull in a china shop when he attends the first concert but whose heart is always in the right place.And the other one is Mme Maria Ouspenskaya (she is granted a "Mme" during the cast and credits!) who was the unforgettable mother of Martin (James Stewart) in Borzage's memorable "mortal storm" .Here she portrays Leopold's mother with authority.Her death is a great moment of delicacy when the music stops in her hand.Probably not as appealing as Borzage's earlier works,this film is yet waiting to be rediscovered.

Borzage's romantic melodrama follows a gifted young (female) pianist torn between her egomaniacal maestro and the absurdly good young farm boy she grew up with (played by a creepy, almost psychopathically serene Bill Carter). The music is really played by Arthur Rubinstein (who was given a huge paycheck for the time, especially considering the studio, Republic pictures, whose first color film this was) and features some great - if in the end excessive - pieces by Rachmoninoff and others. The characters are ultimately uninteresting and so sadly it hardly matters who ends up with whom, though everyone tries their best. It's all very nice though ultimately forgettable. The highpoint of this rather lavish production is the beautiful technicolor cinematography, which is quite nicely captured in the print restored by UCLA that is used on the laserdisc and VHS tape editions.