The Magic Bow

• Stewart Granger as Niccolò Paganini
• Phyllis Calvert as Jeanne de Vermond
• Jean Kent as Bianca
• Dennis Price as Paul de la Rochelle
• Cecil Parker as Luigi Germi
• Felix Aylmer as Signor Fazzini
• Frank Cellier as Antonio
• Marie Lohr as Countess de Vermond
• Henry Edwards as Count de Vermond
• Mary Jerrold as Teresa Paganini
• Betty Warren as Landlady
• Anthony Holles as Manager
• David Horne as Rizzi
• Robert Speaight as Cardinal
• Charles Victor as Peasant Driver

The film was based on a 1941 book.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92417496 |title=Glances At The New Novels |newspaper=The Chronicle |volume=LXXXIV |issue=4,783 |location=Adelaide |date=21 August 1941 |access-date=15 September 2017 |page=33 |via=National Library of Australia}} Maurice Ostrer announced the project in July 1945.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26159826 |title=Great Composers Lives To Make Screen Stories |newspaper=The Mercury |volume=CLXII |issue=23,279 |location=Tasmania|date=14 July 1945 |access-date=15 September 2017 |page=9 |via=National Library of Australia}}

The lead role was offered to James Mason who was excited to accept it and started practising the violin. However, when he read the script, he was disappointed to find it focused on Paganini's love life and turned it down. The part went to Stewart Granger.{{cite book|title=Before I forget : autobiography and drawings|last=Masonfirst= James|year=1989 |publisher=Sphere|url=https://archive.org/details/beforeiforgetaut0000maso/page/190/mode/1up?q=arliss|pages=190–191| isbn=978-0-7221-5763-3 }}

Yehudi Menuhin was hired to perform the violin solos heard in the film.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article168103658 |title=Louis Levy |newspaper=Truth |issue=3313 |location=Sydney |date=26 July 1953 |access-date=15 September 2017 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}} He arrived in London in May 1945 to record the tracks.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43493926 |title=NEWS IN BRIEF; |newspaper=The Advertiser |location=Adelaide |date=21 May 1945 |access-date=15 September 2017 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}} In August it was announced Stewart Granger would play the lead role as part of his last two films for Gainsborough Pictures; the other project was Caravan.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article130232704 |title=British Movies Produce A Pin-Up Boy |newspaper=The News |volume=45 |issue=6,874 |location=Adelaide |date=11 August 1945 |access-date=15 September 2017 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}} Phyllis Calvert was to be his co-star.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article57483393 |title=NEWS ABOUT MOVIES |newspaper=The Mail |volume=34 |issue=1,747 |location=Adelaide |date=17 November 1945 |access-date=15 September 2017 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}} Filming had to be postponed due to an illness to Phyllis Calvert, so Caravan was rushed into production and made first.{{cite news |title=BUSY BRITONS: Two Down and One to Go|author=C.A. LEJEUNE|work=New York Times|date=24 June 1945|page=27}}

Phyllis Calvert's character was fictitious, a composite of various women who had helped Paganini.

The character of Bianca, the Italian singer, was real. Margaret Lockwood was originally announced to play the role, but was replaced by Jean Kent. Lockwood wrote in her memoirs that she felt it was "a very poor and unsuitable role... I was so offended by the script that, although I was under contract, I had made up my mind I would not accept it."{{cite book|first=Margaret|last=Lockwood|title=Lucky Star: The Autobiography of Margaret Lockwood|publisher=Odhams Press Limited|year=1955|page=134}} At the suggestion of Phyllis Calvert they went to see J. Arthur Rank, who neither had met. Lockwood said "he was absolutely charming, heard both of us voice our opinions on various scripts, and, as far as I was concerned, upheld my determination not to accept the part of Bianca."Lockwood p 135

Kent later recalled "I had marvellous costumes in that bit not a very good part. You expect she [Bianca] is going to do something and she never does. It's a film that went wrong. Originally I believe they wanted Margaret Lockwood to play it. Presumably then it would have been a much better part, I don't know what happened. Bernard Knowles was a very good cameraman but not a director."Brian MacFarlane, An Autobiography of British Cinema, Methuen 1997 p 340 (Kent routinely played roles devised for Lockwood.{{cite magazine|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|magazine=Filmink|title=Why Stars Stop Being Stars: Margaret Lockwood|date=29 January 2020|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/stars-stop-stars-margaret-lockwood/}})

Producer R. J. Minner said that:

We are doing it [the film] as delicately as possible, as a study of sacred and profane love. Paganini's relationship with Bianca is rather a tricky business to get past the Hays Office, but we hope, with tact, to manage it. He knew Bianca all his life. He couldn't do it without her. She sang at all his concerts. He kept quarrelling with her and coming back to her. She made him ill and nearly killed him, and in the end he left her.{{cite news|title=THE FILM SCENE IN LONDON: Strictly a Family Affair |author=C.A. LEJEUNE|work=New York Times|date=16 Sep 1945|page=X3}}

Granger was given two violin tutors.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229029605 |title="Caesar" fans mob Granger |newspaper=The Sun |issue=2229 |location=Sydney|date=30 December 1945 |access-date=15 September 2017 |page=9 |via=National Library of Australia}} Menuhin used two violins and spent six weeks recording tracks.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article63258035 |title=INTERESTING SIDELIGHTS |newspaper=Gippsland Times |issue=11,746 |location=Victoria|date=3 March 1947 |access-date=15 September 2017 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}

More traditional Gainsborough melodramas like The Wicked Lady and Caravan made the list of popular British films for 1946 but not The Magic Bow.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59472238 |title=Britain's Best Films. |newspaper=The Sunday Times |location=Perth |date=16 February 1947 |access-date=2 February 2014 |page=12 Supplement: SUPPLEMENT TO THE SUNDAY TIMES |via=National Library of Australia}}[https://books.google.com/books?id=xtGIAgAAQBAJ&dq=hungry+hill+film+box+office&pg=PA209 Robert Murphy, Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939-48 2003 p209]{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/Screen_Volume_32_Issue_3/page/n17|magazine=Screen|page=258|volume=32|issue=3|title=The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry|first=Janet|last=Thumim}}

In their review, The New York Times concluded, "...the behind-the-scenes playing of Yehudi Menuhin as the violinist, drawing his magic bow over the compositions of Paganini, Tartini and Beethoven, is in itself almost worth the price of admission. Stewart Granger, playing Paganini, offers creditable make-believe as a violinist and does his best to play the man in a forthright manner. Considering the script, that is something of an accomplishment. Phyllis Calvert, as the other half of the romance, does well under the same handicaps, while Jean Kent and Dennis Price, aso [sic] facing script difficulties, do the best they can as a couple of jilted lovers. What few pleasant moments occur in the film — outside of the splendid musical sequences — fall to Cecil Parker as Paganini's manager. He presided over the two or three occasions when the audience laughed."{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9800E3D9113EE13BBC4F53DFB166838C659EDE|title=Movie Review – At the Little Carnegie|work=The New York Times|access-date=3 March 2017}}

The film was entered in the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59453490 |title=Ingrid A Non-Starter |newspaper=Sunday Times |issue=2538 |location=Perth |date=13 October 1946 |access-date=15 September 2017 |page=6 (The Sunday Times MAGAZINE) |via=National Library of Australia}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|id=0039594|title=The Magic Bow}}
• [https://archive.org/stream/variety163-1946-09#page/n185/mode/1up Review of film] at Variety
• [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/441045/The Magic Bow at BFI Screenonline]

{{Gainsborough Pictures}}

{{Bernard Knowles}}

{{Niccolò Paganini}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magic Bow, The}}

Category:1946 films

Category:1940s historical musical films

Category:British historical musical films

Category:British black-and-white films

Category:Gainsborough Pictures films

Category:Biographical films about musicians

Category:Cultural depictions of Niccolò Paganini

Category:Films directed by Bernard Knowles

Category:Films about classical music and musicians

Category:Films set in the 19th century

Category:Films about violins and violinists

Category:Films about composers

Category:1940s English-language films

Category:1940s British films

Category:English-language historical musical films