The Eddie Duchin Story (1956)

The Eddie Duchin Story
Directed by George Sidney
Written by Samuel A. Taylor; story by Leo Katcher
1956/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

Eddy Duchin: What I want to know is why! Why do they have to destroy a man twice? You work and work and just when you get… everything. When it gets too good they take it away.

Today is Little Richard Day at FlickersinTime.  The movie I review here illustrates just how big the gap was between the mainstream and rock and roll in 1956.

This is a fictionalized biopic.  Eddie Duchin (Tyrone Power) has been attending pharmacy school while playing piano in the college orchestra.  Band leader Leo Reisman attended one of their sessions and complemented Eddie on his playing.  Eddie took that as a job offer and shows up at the Central Park Casino where Reismann’s band plays.  Riesman and his manager Lou Sherwood (James Whitmore) disabuse Eddie of his mistake.  He goes out and plays the piano for his own amusement and is heard by Marjorie Oelrichs (Kim Novak).  She likes him and his playing and decides Eddie will play while the band is on break.  Eddie is so good that the people keep dancing after the band stops playing and in pretty short order he has a job with Riesman.  Soon Sherwood becomes Eddie’s manager.

Eddie is very clearly driven by a thirst for money and status.  Marjorie comes from a very wealthy family (in reality the niece of Averall Harriman, then governor of New York) but is fiercely independent and manages the casino.  Eddie eventually forms his own orchestra and works on the side at society parties.  Gradually, Eddie and Marjorie fall in love and marry.  She becomes pregnant but tragedy strikes when baby Peter is born.

Eddie is inconsolable and goes on a long tour leaving the boy with Marjorie’s aunt and uncle the entire time.  When WWII breaks out, he joins the Navy almost hoping to be killed. But he survives and now feels the need to become a father to Peter.  This is easier said than done.  Peter is not easily won over and Eddie must also vie for authority with his pretty young governess Chiquita.  Just when things are looking up, a second tragedy strikes.

Although the movie is well made and acted, I wasn’t crazy about it.  The problem was the script.  There is a truly cringe-worthy deathbed scene and the melodrama is spread thick at all points.  In addition, Duchin’s piano playing sounded to me like lounge music, not my favorite.  I’m not sure what Duchin actually sounded like though because for some inexplicable reason what we are hearing is actually Carmen Cavallero, who apparently had a totally different style.

Trailer