# Rhapsody in Blue (1945)

### reviewed by
Jude Wanniski

    Ten Movies That Shook Wanniski

Memo To: Website browsers, fans & clients Author: Jude Wanniski http://www.polyconomics.com Re: #10 "Rhapsody in Blue"

These are not my favorite films They are the movies I've seen that have had the greatest influence on my thinking, my character, my life. Some are favorites that I enjoy watching over and over again, which you can tell by reading on. Try and think of your own experiences with films and how they influenced the course of your life. It makes life more interesting to be aware, as you live it, to know how things like books and films and magazine articles alter your path in significant ways. Sometime last year the NYTimes Sunday "Arts and Leisure" section had a piece on how difficult it was to think of a movie that may have changed history. How silly. Each of the ten films listed here changed my history, and if I had not seen them, I would not have helped change history in the ways that I have. Films don't move masses. They move individuals who move masses.

10. "Rhapsody in Blue" (1945) My mother also took me to see this film at the Boro Park Theatre, when I was nine. Robert Alda plays George Gershwin and Oscar Levant (of American in Paris) plays himself. I only saw this film once, but it was enough. I fell in love with the music and also with the story of George Gershwin. When I was a few years older, I asked for Rhapsody in Blue for Christmas, and my father by mistake bought me Gershwin's Concerto in F for piano and orchestra. After I sulked over the mistake for several weeks, the music propelled me toward a deep love of classical music that has never ended. I also attribute to the movie an awareness of how young Gershwin was when he died, in full flower. For the next 20 years, I carried around a secret belief that I would die of a brain tumor at age 36, like Gershwin. This encouraged me to work as hard as I could to make my contribution before my number came up. I got into the habit.

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