Growing up, we all encounter at least one person who encourages us to follow our dreams. Whether it’s a family member, a trusted teacher or even just a stranger. There are those who motivate every young person to be ambitious and march to the beat of their own drum, since life is meaningless unless you’re doing what makes you happy. Yet, the process of realising one’s goals is not always easy, and it can be a tense, arduous journey that can strip away all motivation and lead to a staggering downfall for those who aren’t able to temper their expectations or handle the curveballs that life tends to throw at us, since this is usually what defines whether someone succeeds and goes on to thrive in their chosen field, or is forced into obscurity, looking back on the possibilities that they unfortunately overlooked, or simply were never afforded. This was the impetus behind “Humoresque: A Laugh on Life with a Tear Behind It”, a short story by Fannie Hurst which is set in the first half of the 20th century, and follows Paul Boray, a violinist who goes from child prodigy to struggling adult musician, determined to pursue a dream that he secretly knows will be very difficult to actually accomplish. His budding relationship with a complex woman, who becomes his patron and secret lover, only complicates matters further, revealing even more of the world’s unsettling realities to a young man who simply wanted to be an artist on his own terms, which proves to be an impossible goal for someone who was born into a situation where escape is almost entirely futile. The story, which was a minor sensation at the time it was published, was inevitably developed into a film adaptation (now simply titled Humoresque), directed by journeyman filmmaker Jean Negulesco, in which we find many of the core themes, while still present, losing most of their lustre, resulting in a middling film that fails to actually say anything of substance, and where all the promising elements are crushed under the weight of a hopelessly dense melodrama that never achieves anything other than the bare minimum.

There has always been a widespread cultural fascination with fame, which is often viewed as a double-edged sword, something that many people crave, but yet the elite few that manage to achieve it will be the first to acknowledge that it is not as glamorous or easy a life as it would seem to outsiders. Humoresque is one of countless instances of films that address the fickle nature of fame, taking a simple premise and using it as the foundation for a story about a young man who leaps headlong into a hostile environment, being hopelessly ill-equipped for a world that no one prepared him for, and where he becomes increasingly isolated. One of the more interesting aspects of this story is that it revolves around his relationship with a fascinating older woman, who is not only positioned as his love interest, but in her capacity as his patron, she embodies the idea of wealth, fame and influence – and naturally, as we would expect from the story, she proves to be an enormously manipulative figure in the young man’s life, taking advantage of him for his youth and talent, while never affording him as many benefits as he provides to her. It’s a one-sided relationship that the film uses to provide intriguing insights into the pitfalls of fame, which is made even more compelling by its refusal to push it as far as we’d expect, since the protagonist achieves only moderate recognition, rather than becoming a world-renowned figure, which creates the irony of him nearly sacrificing his soul to someone who wasn’t even able to lead him to more than just the lowest level of fame imaginable. It’s a compelling story, albeit one that does seem to have a bit of difficulty following through on every one of its ideas, since there’s some thematic detail that is unfortunately missing that could’ve made Humoresque far more captivating, or at least allow us to overlook some of the more notable shortcomings embedded in the film.

I have always had a contentious relationship with melodrama, which is a genre that I respect more than I explicitly adore. This isn’t to say there aren’t several exceptional works that I find to be outstanding and the very definition of artistic ingenuity, but ultimately I am not predisposed to immediately being captivated by these films. The reason for this is because this is a genre that relies very heavily on emotions, and considering I tend to veer away from works that are overwrought or more heavy-handed in how they tell their stories, it’s naturally going to be an uphill battle. This is where I ultimately find the most significant flaws in Humoresque, a film that is extremely dense, presenting a very heavy story that struggles to find the right balance of tones. A good melodrama contains peaks and valleys in terms of how it handles its ideas, and where a cavalcade of melancholy and misery is not at all enjoyable, especially when there is very little levity in between these more serious moments, which are essential not only because it adds nuance, but also prevent the film from being a one-dimensional experience. The concept of a musician teetering on collapse, to the point where he is about to step away from the life he dreamed to have as a result of being so scorned by an industry that has removed all love for his craft, has a lot of promise, but the bland, unconvincing execution extinguishes every ounce of impact it has purely because it struggles to find the right tonal qualities, being nothing more than a series of uncomfortable moments that amount to very little other than hammering in the message that fame is not always easy, and that a simple life in obscurity is often preferrable to a hollow one in the spotlight. The fact that Humoresque takes over two hours to conclude that we can summarise into this single sentence is the first signal that something is amiss. It isn’t helped by the presence of a screenplay that is wall-to-wall cliches, with some of the most heavy-handed, obtuse dialogue of the era – the fact that it was written by Clifford Odets (an enormously respected and influential playwright) and Zachary Gold is bewildering, since the screenplay is an interminable bundle of misguided metaphors and non-sequiturs that feel like someone was doing a parody of low-quality melodramas, rather than attempting to do anything even vaguely meaningful.

There are two elements of Humoresque that do ultimately hold it together, which come in the form of the performances delivered by Joan Crawford and John Garfield, who single-handedly prevent the film from becoming an unmitigated disaster. The director is extraordinarily lucky that he not only managed to secure two of the most important actors working at the time, but also was convincing enough in his direction to extract some very strong work from them, which almost compensates for the glaring problems that linger over this film. Crawford was one of the most undeniably magnetic screen presences in the history of cinema, so incredibly charismatic that we don’t even realise that she is playing a hopelessly one-dimensional character in this film – Helen Wright is nothing more than a physical manifestation of the high society that every person pursuing fame wishes to have in their corner, the connection between social strata that can give anyone a boost of visibility. The film is very smart in allowing Crawford to just hold court, giving her the chance to play into her inherent strengths without forcing her to step out of her comfort zone. She was versatile, but she also knew what worked for her as a performer, and this film knows how to use her, which is one of its only merits. Conversely, Garfield was an actor who was known to disappear into his roles, so he was the polar opposite of his co-star, working laboriously to create a character who is as far from anything else he had played before. The only reason he is not widely celebrated as one of the defining actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood is because of his untimely death and his very distinct style of method acting (which predated many of the people with whom we usually associate the practice), meaning that he didn’t leave behind an iconic image, but instead a defining legacy for those who have seen him act. It’s a simple performance that benefits from being portrayed by an actor who implicitly understands the intricate nuances of the role, and it proves to be quite strong, in spite of the film that surrounds him.

Humoresque is a mediocre film at best of times, and while it’s far from an absolute disaster, it does very little to actually hold our attention, being as prosaic and obtuse as it is frankly meandering, which is sadly one of the reasons classic-era melodramas have not retained the strongest reputation outside the group of dedicated devotees who swear by this style of storytelling. There are a couple of very good elements, such as the two lead performances, but the film is so overwrought in how it delivers its message that it almost feels like an outright betrayal of the good work being done by Crawford and Garfield, who deserved a film that was willing to at least put in as much effort as they did. Ultimately, the real problem here is that Humoresque is wholeheartedly trying to be an insightful, provocative social drama, when in reality it is delivering a very obvious and frankly overly simplistic message that did not need to be the subject of what is essentially nothing more than a relatively conventional melodrama about the darker side of fame. It’s not as smart as it thinks it is (and its efforts to be overly flowery in the language it uses result in some of the most tacky, confusing dialogue imaginable – lines such as “I’m tired of playing second fiddle to the ghost of Beethoven” and “idealism is a luxury for the very young” are the precise kind of verbose, melodramatic statements masquerading as profound philosophical observation), and it never achieves anything particularly meaningful in the process. As a whole, Humoresque is just an overlong slog of a film, a chore that seemingly never ends, and had it not been for the incredible work being done by the two leads, who are alone responsible for salvaging this film, it would have been a true catastrophe, ultimately settling on a jumble of flaccid ideas and even more frustrating missed opportunities.