Good production value. Note that the property master took pains to put the Chopin character on a Pleyel piano (was it real?). Cornel Wilde's good looks adds to the sumptuousness of the sets. But the real Chopin was not even a tenth as handsome.
It compares badly with Song Without End (about Franz Liszt) because Dirk Bogarde probably really knew something about piano playing as his fingerwork and body English while playing were very credible. In contrast, we only get mostly frontal shots of Wilde as Chopin on the piano and we never see his hands.
While supposedly the hero of the story, the film inadvertently portrays Chopin as an ingrate to his music professor and as a tepid nationalist who eventually turned his back on his own country only to relent and try to make up for his neglect. Not only that, Chopin here is something of a kept man of a man-eating virago - the writer George Sand portrayed here by Merle Oberon which was a waste of her beauty.
It compares badly with Song Without End (about Franz Liszt) because Dirk Bogarde probably really knew something about piano playing as his fingerwork and body English while playing were very credible. In contrast, we only get mostly frontal shots of Wilde as Chopin on the piano and we never see his hands.
While supposedly the hero of the story, the film inadvertently portrays Chopin as an ingrate to his music professor and as a tepid nationalist who eventually turned his back on his own country only to relent and try to make up for his neglect. Not only that, Chopin here is something of a kept man of a man-eating virago - the writer George Sand portrayed here by Merle Oberon which was a waste of her beauty.