Has anyone seen the film “Carnegie Hall?” Sure, it sports a corny plot about a young pianist who turns the classical music world on its ear by becoming a jazz artist. Of course, the debut of his “avant garde” concerto (with Harry James as soloist) seems positively quaint from today’s perspective, as I’m sure it would have been even in 1947.

The main draw is the procession of real-life classical music superstars, including Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky, Arthur Rubinstein, Lily Pons, Rise Stevens, Jan Peerce, Ezio Pinza, Bruno Walter and Fritz Reiner, among others, all of whom get to perform.

The film was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, who emerged from the German Expressionist movement (he claimed to have worked on “Metropolis” and “M”) to direct atmospheric Hollywood films like “The Black Cat” and “Detour.”

That experience obviously prepared him for this showcase of Leopold Stokowski, who in the film’s best sequence conducts a movement from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. The camera angles are striking, the lighting dramatic, and Stoky’s hair just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

While we’re at it, here’s another one of my favorite Stoky clips posted on YouTube. He’s conducting Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” at the age of 90. The clip is in two parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5A4CkUAazI (Part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1P85n9uPzE (Part 2)