Film Preview – Bognor Regis Observer – Friday, 23 August 1957

A film which many women will like and to which most of them will take their menfolk, “The Eddie Duchin Story” is a CinemaScope, Technicolour production. Based on the life of Eddie Duchin, a famous American pianist, it divides its time between his highly successful professional career and is idyllic but tragic domestic life. Tyrone Power, in the title role, plays the ambitious young man with a flair for interpreting light music on the piano. He accidentally meets a beautiful socialite (Kim Novak) and through her gets his first big chance. He marries her, but she dies giving birth to their son. Heartbroken he leaves a child with relatives, not to return for 12 years. A wartime incident in which he and a small native boy strum on a battered piano leads to his return, where he finds his small son enjoying the companionship of a grown-up girl. She, played by Victoria Shaw, becomes Duchin’s second wife. The true story of one of the most daring and divisive missions of World War II is told in “The Dam Busters,” the story of the raid on the Moehne and Eder dams. Against a background of wartime England unfolds the inspiring story of a man who believed unfalteringly in an idea that seemed impossible–the destruction of the great Ruhr dams, centre of Germany’s armament industry, with a special bomb of his invention. The amazingly successful American comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis are seen in another hit entitled “Hollywood or Bust.” Also featuring our Pat Crowley, Maxie Rosenbloom, and guest star Anita Ekberg. The film concerns the preposterous adventures of Steve Wiley, a New York gambler, and Malcolm Smith, wide-eyed film fan who, at the slightest provocation, will rattle off the cast and credits of every film made in the past 20 years.