Camping out with Franz Schubert

Before Benjamin Appl's  Schubert recital at the Wigmore Hall tonight, a bit of fun.  Franz Schubert at the movies!  That's Richard Tauber on the left, playing Schubert in "Blossom Time",  a 1934 British musical which bears little relation to what we know about the composer. The film is itself based on an earlier German film (and operetta) with apparently even less factual content.  I haven't seen the notorious Blossom Time since I was a kid but even then I thought it was odd. Tauber, one of the great tenors of his time, loved doing crossover and made many strange quasi-musical movies, including one with Jimmy Durante, which is surprisngly good  (READ MORE HERE).

Because Blossom Time was an English movie, Tauber sings and plays the piano at the same time, like Mrs Mills: the performances, have  camp theatrical final flourishes, and the piano is clearly being played from a distance!  Blossom Time was remade in 1946  apparently with even more liberties taken.