With a few exceptions, opera stars have never had long careers in Hollywood films. Columbia had tried to boost Grace Moore in pictures, but the general public wasn't receptive. When You're in Love (1937) was one of the studio's last attempts to secure her popularity by teaming her with rising RKO star Cary Grant, who had just left Paramount for a better deal next door. His new contract would allow him to make a film at Columbia, one at RKO and a third of his own choosing at whichever studio he wished. Grant had hoped that writer-director Robert Riskin could do for him what he had done for Clark Gable and Gary Cooper in the comedy films he wrote for Frank Capra, but When You're in Love was no It Happened One Night (1934).

Originally titled Interlude , When You're in Love was a light romance about an Australian singer, Louise Fuller (Moore), who can't return to the US from Mexico because of a visa issue, and an artist, Jimmy Hudson (Grant), who can't pay his hotel bill. In order to solve both of their problems, Jimmy agrees to marry Louise so that she can return to the States, and he gets $2,000 to wipe out his debt. What they didn't figure on was falling in love. Also in the cast were Aline MacMahon, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Stephenson and silent film legend Louise Brooks as a specialty dancer. Brooks reportedly fought with Columbia head Harry Cohn and was booted off the film, although she can be seen without credit in a dance sequence.

When You're in Love was writer Robert Riskin's first effort as a director, working from a script he wrote based on an idea by Ethel Hill and Cedric Worth, and produced by his brother, Everett. The film took advantage of Grace Moore's ability to sing more than just opera featuring songs by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields like "Our Song" and "The Whistling Boy" as well as a rendition of Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher." To please opera fans, Moore was allowed to show off those talents with "Un Bel Di (One Fine Day)" from Madame Butterfly, "Love and Music" from La Boheme, both by Puccini, and "The Walz Song" from Gounod's Romeo and Juliet among others.

The film premiered in New York City at Radio City Music Hall on February 18, 1937, and went into general release on February 27th. Frank Nugent of The New York Times echoed the general opinion of critics that while Moore's singing was the highlight of the film, the story was only so-so. "[W]e had hoped that Robert Riskin's first effort as writer and director would have been a trifle more mettlesome than it is. But promotions make conservatives of us all and Mr. Riskin probably felt it was wiser to play safe in preparing and bringing a new Grace Moore picture to the screen. When You're in Love, [...] is little more than a glib reworking of an ancient operatic formula. It is agreeable, tuneful and slight and there is no reason why it should not prove as entertaining today as it did five, ten or twenty years ago. [...] As a postscript we might add that the picture could have stood a few more comic touches, that it takes a long time getting started and that Mr. Grant, Aline MacMahon, Thomas Mitchell, Emma Dunn and George Pearce are quite all right in the assisting rôles."

Decades later, Riskin's frequent collaborator, director Frank Capra, would write in his autobiography that Riskin felt that Capra had received too much credit and himself too little on the films they made together. Capra advised Riskin to "make your own films and you'll get all the credit." He made his own film, and found there was a fine-print proviso to the 'all the credit' clause: 'all the blame' if the film did not come up to snuff. [...] Riskin had directed When You're in Love [...] To everyone's surprise, Riskin's film was disappointing - especially to him. And for some strange reason our intimate relationship was never quite the same again."

Cary Grant's career was not hurt by the lukewarm reception of When You're in Love ; he would become one of the most popular leading men and gifted comedic actors of his generation. For Grace Moore, however, Hollywood stardom remained elusive, and she only made two more films, preferring to concentrate on singing before her death in a 1947 plane crash in Copenhagen at the age of 48.

SOURCES: Capra, Frank The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography
Greenspan, Charlotte Pick Yourself Up: Dorothy Fields and the American Musical
The Internet Movie Database
Nugent, Frank S. "THE SCREEN; ' When You're in Love' Opens at the Music Hall" The New York Times 19 Feb 37
Reid, John Howard More Movie Musicals
Wansell, Geoffrey Cary Grant: Dark Angel

By Lorraine LoBianco