As Hungarian composer Sigmund Romberg, who made a big splash in New York City in the 1920s writing the music for an array of hit Broadway shows, José Ferrer sings, dances and cuts up like never before, even dropping to one knee for an Al Jolson impression. Ferrer gives an appealing performance (particularly in his finale at Carnegie Hall), but less of Ferrer is more; he's certainly a trouper, but Ferrer is on the screen far too much. He's just about upstaged, anyhow, by a virtual roll call of MGM talent (Ann Miller, Howard Keel, Jane Powell, and Gene Kelly dancing with real-life brother Fred), all appearing in the kind of glorified cameos the studio excelled at during this period. Cyd Charisse and James Mitchell share a camp-exotica number heightened by surprisingly erotic choreography, and Powell's operetta number from "Maytime" is beautifully presented. The film is short on melodrama (which is a plus), and the final sequence--capped with a nice performance of "When I Grow Too Old to Dream"--is heartfelt. But overall, this is strictly pot luck for star-watchers, one with hokey voice-overs, characters who come and go at whim, and spinning newspaper headlines marking time. ** from ****

By 1954, a biography of operetta composer Sigmund Romberg seems a bit out of place just two years before Elvis Presley took the recording industry by storm. But Hollywood wasn't giving up on operettas, at least not yet, having just filmed Romberg's "The Desert Song" (for the 4th time, if you include "The Red Shadow, a 1934 short) and "The Student Prince", as well as Rudolph Friml's "Rose Marie". As a movie biography, "Deep in My Heart" is a lot of "and then I did", but it is completely charming. A glorious opening has the MGM chorus singing the title song after a brief orchestral medley of his songs, and don't be surprised if your spine doesn't tingle a bit when the first close-up on Jose Ferrer comes up.As other musical biographies always start, Sigmund Romberg is a hopeful composer who reluctantly writes jazzy tunes (the delightful "Leg of Mutton") to get his name bandied about by Broadway producers. They take his beautiful medley, "Softly as a Morning Sunrise", and turn it into a Folies Bergere type number for his first show, but Romberg insists that he won't be satisfied until he can have his operetta, "Maytime", produced. In the meantime, he writes for a few more reviews, but when "Maytime" is produced, he has an artistic and financial smash on his hands. The pairing of Jane Powell and Vic Damone singing "Will You Remember?" is glorious, which sets the tone for the on-stage numbers. It's ironic here that the best numbers are the ones for his operettas, "The Student Prince", "The Desert Song", and "New Moon". Jazzy numbers like "It", "I Love to Go Swimmin' With Women" are slightly disappointing, as if stating these types of songs didn't have his heart in them. In fact, "It", lively sung and danced by Ann Miller is a little offensive.As far as the storyline goes, the music drops out completely in the middle of the film as Romberg's romance with his future wife Lillian (Doe Averdon) erupts, but fortunately, it's not gone for long. Ferrer gives a hysterical performance while describing the plot and music of his newest show "Jazz-a-Doo" to Averdon and her uppity mother (Isobel Elsom) that is reminiscent of Danny Kaye's early work. Supporting Ferrer, along with his wife, are the lovely Merle Oberon as Romberg's lyricist and book writer Dorothy Donnelly and the amazing Helen Traubel as Anna Mueller, his life-long friend who has the voice of an angel, not to mention the heart of gold to go along with it. Traubel, who made few films, is a gifted comic and steals every scene she is in.For fans of "Funny Girl", there is a nice ironic scene of Walter Pidgeon playing J.J. Shubert in a scene with Paul Henreid as Florenz Ziegfeld. (It's too bad they couldn't get William Powell to play David Belasco or some other Broadway producer of that era.) "Mr. Magoo" and "Thurston Howell III" fans will instantly recognize Jim Backus in the role of one of Romberg's writing partners. Overall, "Deep in My Heart" is typical MGM gloss with only the outline of a story, but works tremendously because of the entertainment quotient it brings. It ranks up there with "Till the Clouds Roll By" and "Three Little Words", and outshines the fictitious Cole Porter story ("Night and Day") and the sanitized "Words and Music" (the Rodgers and Hart story).

There's no doubt that Romberg is one of the fine composers of musicals and operettas. Many of his songs are now classics of the American theater.This production tries hard to do justice to the composer's life, career, and love. With so much fine talent recruited for the biopic, it was guaranteed to be at a certain high level.Somewhere things went a bit amiss, and one leaves as much exhausted as inspired. Perhaps some judicious cutting (especially in the mid-section) would have helped. (Personally, I feel Jose Ferrer's "tour de force" one-man presentation at the resort cottage could have been left out.) Running at 132 minutes, it's a long haul.Still, there's the lovely Merle Oberon, silver throated Helen Traubel, and a dozen guest stars in featured production numbers. It seems to me Mr. Ferrer was at his energetic peak at this time and his exuberance simply needed to be reined in (probably by Director Stanley Donen)."Deep in My Heart" remains a fairly good biopic with great talent, variety, and energy. All that's needed is a dinner break.

This is such a strange film for MGM to have made in 1954, given the decline in the interest of studio head Dore Schary in actually making new musicals.... they made an old musical instead, and used up the dwindling contracts of their roster of stars who were about to be abandoned. It is almost the "That's Entertainment" of operetta scenes and using Sigmund Romberg as the excuse to link together well staged and quite beautiful sequences that showcase many of his tunes. As played by Jose Ferrer, Siggy comes across as yet another overweight (overfed) mommies boy composer with an un natural attachment to the usual Euro cliché parent in which MGM specialised. I guess MGM couldn't get Danny Thomas and Jose owed them some weeks work like the guest stars we see. The production values are splendid and by far the best scenes are the most erotic Desert Song sequence with Cyd Charisse and James Mitchell and the very funny Anne Miller scene from Artists and Models recycling all the Singin In the Rain clothes.