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Rhapsody in Blue Overview:

Rhapsody in Blue (1945) was a Biographical - Drama Film directed by Irving Rapper and produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jesse L. Lasky.

Academy Awards 1945 --- Ceremony Number 18 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Music - ScoringRay Heindorf, Max SteinerNominated
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Rhapsody in Blue BlogHub Articles:

Rhapsody in Blue

By RBuccicone on Apr 6, 2011 From MacGuffin Movies

     George Gershwin is probably my favorite composer after Cole Porter, so I was naturally interested in Rhapsody in Blue, a docudrama about his life. I can honestly say, however, that my conclusion of this film’s worth is independent of whatever favorable bias I might have. It’s a ... Read full article

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Rhapsody in Blue Quotes:

George Gershwin: It's only with my music that I can prove my right to live. I must write!
George Gershwin: I don't want to be just a concert pianist. I want to use the piano as a stepping stone!
Max Dreyfus: [referring to "Porgy and Bess", which has just opened] You've made opera entertaining.
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Rhapsody in Blue Facts
The Catfish Row set seen in the "Porgy and Bess" sequence is an exact duplicate of the original 1935 set for the first Broadway production of the opera.
Film debut of Robert Alda.
Oscar Levant had three functions in this film: he provided George Gershwin's piano playing as Robert Alda's double, he portrayed himself on screen and he was heard playing piano on the soundtrack as himself, Oscar Levant, in the commemorative performance of "Rhapsody in Blue" which ends the film.
Al Jolson's appearance singing "Swanee" is his final credited performance in a film, but not his last appearance on screen. In The Jolson Story he appears as himself, unbilled, in one scene, again singing "Swanee".
The characters played respectively by Alexis Smith, Joan Leslie, and Albert Bassermann are fictional. There was no love triangle between Gershwin and the two women, and Gershwin's music teacher did not die the night that "Rhapsody in Blue" premiered. The scene in which Gershwin is fired by the music publisher for playing his own music is also fictional. However, most of the other characters in the film did exist, including Max Dreyfus, and Anne Brown, who played Bess in the original "Porgy and Bess" is still alive ca. early 2009.
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