There is so much to love in this Joan Crawford flick I hardly know where to begin. Firstly, it is my second-favorite Crawford movie (the first being Rain obviously, as I was in the 1980 version). Secondly, Oscar Levant. Oscar Levant! Novelist Nora Johnson’s object of teenage lust!
Thirdly, the B&W gorgeousness of the movie itself.
The entire film HUMORESQUE (1940) is available to watch here
Fourthly, the music!!! (See below.)
Above: “City Montage” from Humoresque by Franz Waxman. John Musto, Russell Warner arrangers; Andrew Litton conducts the London Symphony Orchestra.
I’ll add links as we go along.
- Antonín Dvorák / Humoresque, op 101 no 7 in G-flat major
- Howard Dietz+Arthur Schwartz / I Guess I’ll Have To Change My Plan
- Richard Rodgers+Lorenz Hart / My Heart Stood Still
- Cole Porter / You Do Something to Me
- Cole Porter / What Is This Thing Called Love?
- James F. Hanley / Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart
- Al Dubin+Harry Warren / Don’t Say Good-Night
- George+Ira Gershwin / Embraceable You
- George Gershwin / Prelude II
- George Gershwin / Prelude III
- Frederic Chopin / Etude in G-flat major op 10 no 5
- Frederic Chopin / Ballade No 4 in F minor op 52
- Richard Wagner / Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde
- Georges Bizet, Franz Waxman arr / Carmen Fantasie
- Edouard Lalo / Symphonie espagnole in D minor op 21
- Felix Mendelssohn / Violin Concerto in E minor op 64
- Franz von Suppé / Poet and Peasant Overture
- Pablo de Sarasate / Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs) op 20
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky / Violin Concerto in D major op 35
- Henryk Wieniawski / Violin Concerto No 2 in D minor op 22
- César Franck / Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major
- Edvard Grieg / Piano Concerto in A minor op 16
- Sergei Prokofiev / Piano Concerto No 3 in C major op 26
- Dmitri Shostakovich / Polka from the ballet The Golden Age op 22
- Johannes Brahms / Waltz in A-flat major op 39 no 15
- Johann Sebastian Bach / Sonata No 1 in G minor BWV 1001
- Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov / Flight of the Bumblebee
Find Part 2, the Lust part, at Medium here.
- “The Story So Far, with Conductor John Wilson”
- “The Story So Far; Or, Conductor John Wilson—His Limits”
"I'll Be Dead Before You Break My Heart" 
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